Ube  IDfctorian  Eta  Series 


John  Bright 


John  Bright 


By 

C.  A.  VINCE,  M.A, 

Formerly  Fellow  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge 


»  ', 


•     •  • 

o  e      * 


HERBERT   S.   STONE   &   COMPANY 
CHICAGO   &   NEW  YORK 

MDCCCXCVIII 


D> 


«^& 


<^% 


•A 


Preface 


A  history  of  John  Bright's  career  must  needs  be  largely 
a  record  of  opinions.  In  constructing  this  record  I  have 
tried,  as  far  as  possible,  to  use  his  own  words,  although 
the  limits  of  this  book  do  not  permit  extended  quota- 
tions from  his  speeches.  Such  a  method  is  facilitated  by 
the  terseness  of  his  style;  and  inasmuch  as  his  opinions 
were  always  clearly  defined,  and,  being  notably  indepen- 
dent of  circumstances  and  conditions,  were  subject  to 
very  little  change,  I  may  reasonably  hope  to  have  escaped 
the  error  of  misrepresenting  occasional  utterances  as 
definite  judgments. 

I  have  not,  however,  been  content  merely  to  sum- 
marize Bright's  acts  and  views,  but  have  throughout 
tried  to  form  and  to  suggest  a  critical  estimate  of  his 
work  and  its  results.  With  one  exception  the  contro- 
versies in  which  he  was  engaged  are  now  sufficiently 
remote,  and  their  issues  sufficiently  developed,  to  bear 
historical  treatment.  The  exception  is  the  controversy 
raised  in  1886;  upon  this  subject,  therefore,  I  have 
added  no  comment  to  the  account  given  of  Bright's 
opinions.  The  space  allotted  to  the  different  subjects 
treated  is  proportional,  not  to  their  importance,  but  to 
the  importance  of  Bright's  dealings  with  them. 

For  some  details  of  Bright's  parentage  and  early  life 
I  rely  on  the  authority  of  the  biography  written  by  Mr. 
W.  Robertson  of  Rochdale.  In  studying  his  parlia- 
mentary career  I  have  resorted  throughout  to  Hansard 
and  the  newspaper  files.  The  books  of  which  I  have 
made  most  use  are  Mr.  Morley's  Life  of  Cohden^  Pren- 
tice's History  of  the  League^  the  Histories  of  Mr.  J.   F. 


48926 


vi  Preface 

Bright  and  Mr.  W.  N.  Molesworth,  Mr.  Kinglake*s 
Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  Charles  Greville's  Jourfial,  Earl 
Russell's  RecollectionSj  Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan's  Life  of 
Macaulay,  and  the  collection  of  Bright's  Public  Letters 
edited  by  Mr.  H.  J.  Leech.  Wherever  I  have  derived 
hints  from  other  books  I  have  indicated  the  source. 

I  may  be  permitted  to  add  that  I  have  been  from  boy- 
hood a  close  observer  of  the  political  life  of  Birmingham, 
and  for  some  years  actively  engaged  in  it.  This  work 
has  made  me  conscious  of  the  still  lasting  influence  of 
Bright's  doctrine  and  example  on  the  minds  of  persons 
interested  in  politics  in  this  city.  That  influence  has 
often  been  neglected  or  under-estimated  by  journalists 
and  speakers  who  have  treated  the  present  state  of 
Liberal  opinion  in  Birmingham  as  a  phenomenon  calling 
for  explanation.  It  has  been  a  task  of  curious  interest 
to  me  to  amplify  and  correct,  by  a  complete  study  of 
Bright's  career,  my  conception  of  the  character,  the 
methods,  the  failures  and  successes,  the  greatness  and 
the  limitations,  of  a  man  who  did  so  much  to  form  the 
political  mind  with  which  I  am  in  daily  contact. 

I  have  had  the  advantage  of  consulting  on  some 
points  politicians  whose  knowledge  of  Bright  was 
intimate  and  of  long  duration.  In  particular,  I  have  to 
thank  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  Mr.  J.  Thackray  Bunce, 
who  most  kindly  communicated  to  me  some  of  their 
personal  recollections  of  Bright.  Mr.  William  Wright 
of  Birmingham  has  allowed  me  the  use  of  his  large 
collection  of  newspaper  cuttings,  and  has  given  me 
other  assistance,  which  I  here  gratefully  acknowledge. 

C.    A.    VINCE. 

Birmingham,  Dec,  1897. 


Contents 


CHAPTER   I 

Page 

The  Anti-Corn- Law  League         _        -        -        -        -      9 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Radical  Reformers         ------    3^ 

CHAPTER  III 
The  War  with  Russia 53 

CHAPTER  IV 
hidia  ---------        ~     73 

CHAPTER    V 
Parliamentary  Reform ^9 

CHAPTER   VI 
Irelaftd        -        - ^^^ 

CHAPTER    VII 

Educatio7i;  the  Conservative  Reaction;  and  the  Eastern 

Question        --------  134 

CHAPTER   VIII 
Last  Years -        -  176 

CHAPTER  IX 
Bright' s  Oratory  ..------  204 

CHAPTER  X 
Characteristics     --------  220 

INDEX ^43 


John   Bright. 


Chapter  I. 
The  Anti-Corn-Law  League. 

John  Bright  was  born  at  Green  Bank,  Rochdale,  on 
November  i6,  1811.  He  was  the  second  son  of  Jacob 
Bright,  a  prosperous  manufacturer.  He  came  of  a 
thrifty  and  pious  stock.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
his  paternal  ancestors  were  farmers  at  Lyneham  in  Wilt- 
shire, where  there  is  a  field  that  still  bears  the  name  of 
Bright's  Orchard.  Abraham  Bright,  the  great-grand- 
father of  the  statesman,  migrated  from  Wiltshire  to 
Coventry,  and  there  his  grandson,  Jacob  Bright,  was 
born.  Jacob  Bright  was  apprenticed  to  William  Holme, 
a  Derbyshire  manufacturer;  and  early  in  this  century 
accompanied  the  two  sons  of  Holme  to  Rochdale,  where 
he  was  employed  by  them  in  a  cotton  mill.  Two  years 
before  the  birth  of  his  famous  son  he  started  a  mill  on 
his  own  account.  He  borrowed  the  capital  for  this 
enterprise,  but  soon  became  independent,  and  in  time 
wealthy.  He  was  shrewd  in  business  and  rigid  in  prin- 
ciple, but  of  a  just  and  compassionate  disposition,  a 
generous  giver,  and,  by  comparison  with  other  cotton- 
spinners  of  those  cruel  days,  notable  for  the  kindliness 
of  his  dealings  with  his  work-people.  He  distinguished 
himself  by  the  obstinacy  of  his  resistance  to  church-rates, 
consistently  refusing  to  pay  until  his  goods  were  dis- 


/ '    «  '  ; '  . 


lo  John  Bright. 

trained.  He  appears  to  have  been  worthy  of  the  venera- 
tion with  which  his  son  cherished  his  memory;  and  all 
that  is  recorded  of  him  is  consistent  with  the  belief  that 
it  was  from  him  that  John  Bright  received,  whether  by 
training-  or  by  inheritance,  his  piety  of  spirit,  his  un- 
bending opinion,  and  his  strong  faith  in  individual 
liberty.  Those  who  attach  importance  to  the  remoter 
influences  of  heredity  may  think  it  noteworthy  that 
Bright  had  a  small  infusion  of  Hebrew  blood,  for  his 
great -grandmother,  the  wife  of  Abraham  Bright  of 
Coventry,  was  a  Jewess. 

John  Bright  received  such  education  as  the  better  sort 
of  private  Nonconformist  schools  were  able  to  offer  at  a 
time  when  Dissenters  were  still  excluded  from  the 
universities.  "My  limited  school-time",  he  wrote  in 
1886,  *' scarcely  allowed  me  to  think  of  Greek;  and  I 
should  now  make  but  slow  steps  in  Latin,  even  with  the 
help  of  a  dictionary."  He  brought  from  his  school  in 
Ribbledale  a  love  of  angling  which  furnished  him  with 
a  wholesome  recreation  throughout  life,  and  sufficient 
skill  at  cricket  to  make  him  a  useful  member  of  the 
Rochdale  eleven.  He  had  also  acquired  a  genuine  love 
of  reading,  but  not  any  aptitude  for  systematic  study, 
and  was  sufficiently  interested  in  intellectual  matters  to 
join  the  local  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society.  It  is, 
however,  the  common  experience  of  provincial  societies 
bearing  this  honourable  name  that  they  discuss  contem- 
porary events  and  problems  with  more  zest  than  either 
philosophy  or  literature.  Whatever  were  the  defects  of 
Bright's  education  he  never  affected   to  deplore  them. 

/  His  devotion  to  politics  was  so  complete  that  he  applied 
the  political  standard  to  everything;  and  the  connection 

'  he  discovered  between  culture  and  Conservatism  led  him 
rather  to  respect  culture  less  than  Conservatism  more. 
The  observation,  which  he  found  frequent  occasion  to 
mention,  that  the  ancient  universities  returned  to  Par- 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  ii 

liament  the  most  unreasonable  of  Tories,  made  him 
suspect  that  the  literature  studied  in  those  seats  of 
learningf  was  superficial  and  unsound. 

His  father,  and  his  ancestors  for  many  generations, 
were  Nonconformists,  and  members  of  the  Society  of 
Friends.  He  himself  remained  faithful  to  the  religious 
and  political  ideas  and  traditions  in  which  he  was 
brought  up.  A  great  part  of  his  public  conduct  cannot 
be  understood  by  anyone  who  either  forgets  that  he 
was  a  Nonconformist,  or  is  ignorant  of  the  political 
history  of  nonconformity.  He  was  proud  of  his  descent 
from  John  Gratton  of  Derbyshire,  who  was  a  leader  of 
the  Quakers  during  the  life  of  George  Fox,  and  suffered 
imprisonment  in  the  persecution  of  Charles  and  James. 
During  his  boyhood  Rochdale  was  the  scene  of  violent 
conflicts  on  the  question  of  church-rates.  To  this  recol-  « 
lection  he  often  recurred ;  and  the  se/ise  of  injuries  to  be 
resented,  which  Nonconformists  of  his  age  had  so  many 
reasons  to  feel,  remained  in  his  mind  to  the  last.  A 
certain  asperity  of  temper  is  commonly  imputed  by 
unfriendly  critics  to  political  Nonconformists.  It  is  to 
be  explained,  if  it  can  no  longer  be  excused,  by  the 
bitterness  of  the  prolonged  struggle  by  which  they 
painfully  won  the  elementary  rights  of  citizenship. 
Throughout  his  life  Bright  never  spoke  with  so  much 
vehemence  of  indignation,  and  never,  it  must  be  added, 
with  so  little  concern  for  the  susceptibility  of  his  oppo- 
nents, as  when  he  was  pleading  for  religious  equality, 
and  giving  voice  to  his  resentment  at  the  privileges  of 
the  Established  Church. 

It  is  still  more  important  that  the  student  of  his  career 
should  not  for  a  moment  forget  that  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Society  of  Friends.  The  discipline  of  that  society 
has  been  eminently  successful  in  promoting  both  private 
virtue  and  a  generous  sense  of  public  duty.  Bright's 
religion  was  the  very  foundation  of  his  public  as  well  as 


12  John  Bright. 

of  his  private  character;  and  the  faith  he  possessed  by- 
inheritance  and  by  education  was  that  of  a  sect  whose 
presentment  of  Christianity  has  sedulously  given  to  the 
consecration  of  daily  life  priority  over  observance  and 
doctrine.  There  is  an  air,  surely  unaffected,  as  of 
saintly  self-dedication  in  Bright's  own  account,  quoted 
below,  of  his  first  devotion  to  political  work.  It  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  his  political  and  religious 
convictions  formed  in  his  mind  one  indistinguishable 
whole;  both  were  articles  of  faith,  equally  unchange- 
able, equally  superior  to  expediency,  and  vivified  by  the 
same  enthusiasm  for  righteousness.  He  did  not  seek 
for  his  principles  in  inductions  from  the  recorded  history 
of  nations,  nor  in  any  reasoned  political  philosophy. 
He  was  content  to  deduce  his  conclusions  from  compre- 
hensive premises  which  appeared  to  him  to  possess  a 
religious  sanction.     This  is  the  source  of  that  assertive 

/temper  and  that  disdain  of  compromise,  which  both 
strengthened  him  as  a  leader  of  popular  opinion,  and 
disqualified  him  as  a  parliamentary  tactician.  The 
earnestness  by  which  he  kindled  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
friends,  and  provoked  the  resentment  of  his  opponents, 
was  akin  to  the  zeal  of  an  evangelist  proclaiming  the 
way  of  salvation.  Like  Macaulay  he  was  subject  to  the 
reproach  of  being  much  too  certain  that  he  was  always 
in  the  right.  Macaulay's  certainty  was  doubtless  based 
on  his  consciousness  of  having  grasped  all  the  facts 
relevant  to  the  issue,  and  his  satisfaction  with  his  own 
mental  processes.  The  certainty  of  Bright  was  the 
assurance  of  faith  —  the  confidence  which,  however 
exasperating  in  a  debater,  has  always  been  recognized 

*  as  essential  to  the  character  of  a  prophet. 

Voltaire  had  long  ago  made  Quakerism  known  and 
respected  by  French  men  of  letters;  and  a  countryman 
of  Voltaire,  M.  Challemel-Lacour,  has,  with  eloquence 
and  insight,  deduced  Bright's  public  character  from  his 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  13 

Quaker  training-.^  **That  intrepidity  in  conflict,  that 
indomitable  energ-y,  those  speeches  with  a  strain  all 
their  own,  reveal  something  deeper  than  merely  political 
conviction.  Mr.  Bright  is  a  Quaker.  He  admits  that 
his  sect  is  reputed  to  be  making  no  progress;  but  he 
adds  that  its  principles  are  gaining  more  ground  than 
is  commonly  supposed.  A  craving  for  peace  felt  more 
keenly  every  day,  a  growing  recognition  of  the  incom- 
petence of  the  state  in  the  region  of  the  religious  con- 
science, a  respect  for  the  dignity  of  manhood  even  in  the 
most  forlorn, — I  may  add,  a  sort  of  utilitarianism  ex- 
hibited in  the  increasing  regard  for  useful  knowledge, 
and  in  the  payment  of  due  honour  to  industry, — here  we 
have  traits  of  society  as  it  is,  and  these  are  ideas  pro- 
fessed from  the  first  by  the  sect  to  which  Mr.  Bright 
belongs.  In  his  speeches,  even  when  he  is  dealing  with 
the  most  arid  topics,  we  are  always  conscious  of  an 
undercurrent  of  religious  emotion  that  rises  to  the  sur- 
face only  at  rare  intervals  as  by  an  involuntary  force." 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  Bright  was  taken  from  school 
and  set  to  learn  his  father's  business.  He  was  the  first 
son  taken  into  partnership,  his  elder  brother  having 
died  in  childhood.  The  firm  became  Jacob  Bright  & 
Son,  and  subsequently  John  Bright  &  Brothers.  It  will 
be  well  to  say  at  once  what  is  necessary  about  Bright's 
private  circumstances.  Though  never  a  wealthy  man 
by  comparison  with  the  great  magnates  of  the  Lanca- 
shire trade,  he  always  enjoyed  the  means  of  living  in 
such  comfort  as  satisfied  the  simplicity  of  his  tastes, 
and  was  free  from  those  financial  embarrassments  into 
which  his  friend  Cobden  was  precipitated  by  his  sacrifice 
of  time  to  the  public  good.  Those  who  set  any  value 
on  Bright's  services  to  the  commonwealth  must  not 
fail  to  bestow   part  of  their  gratitude  on  his  younger 

^"Hommes  d'Etat  de  I'Angleterre.      John  Bright." — Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  Feb.  15,  1870. 


14  John  Bright. 

brothers,  who,  with  admirable  g-enerosity  and  public 
spirit,  released  him  from  his  share  in  the  work  of  the 
business  as  soon  as  his  vocation  to  public  life  became 
apparent  to  himself  and  to  them. 

He  interested  himself  at  an  early  age  in  the  activities 
of  his  town,  and  made  several  public  appearances  soon 
after  reaching*  his  majority,  which  fell  in  the  year  of 
the  Reform  Bill.  His  first  speech  on  the  Free  Trade 
question  was  made  at  Rochdale  in  1838.  In  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year  he  became  a  member  of  the  first  pro- 
visional committee  of  the  Manchester  Anti-Corn-Law 
Association.  He  was  the  only  member  not  resident  in 
Manchester.  Cobden  joined  the  committee  a  week  later. 
This  association  was  the  nucleus  of  the  famous  Anti- 
Corn-Law  League,  the  date  of  whose  birth  is  March  20, 
1839.  Bright  took  his  share  in  the  work  of  the  League 
from  the  first ;  but  he  dated  the  beginning-  of  his  public 
services  and  of  his  memorable  friendship  with  Cobden 
from  September  13,  1841.  What  happened  on  that  day, 
the  turning-point  of  his  life,  must  be  recorded  in  his  own 
language. 

**  I  was  at  Leamington  when  Mr.  Cobden  called  upon 
me.  I  was  then  in  the  depths  of  grief, — I  might  almost 
say  of  despair, — for  the  light  and  sunshine  of  my  house 
had  been  extinguished.  All  that  was  left  on  earth  of 
my  young  wife,  except  the  memory  of  a  sainted  life  and 
of  a  too  brief  happiness,  was  lying-  still  and  cold  in  the 
chamber  above  us.  Mr.  Cobden  called  upon  me  as  his 
friend,  and  addressed  me,  as  you  may  suppose,  with 
words^f  condolence.  (After  a  time  he  looked  up  and 
said/* There  are  thousands  of  homes  in  England  at  this 
moment  where  wives,  mothers,  and  children  are  dying 
of  hunger.  Now,'  he  said,  *when  the  first  paroxysm  of 
your  grief  is  passed,  I  would  advise  you  to  come  with 
me,  and  we  will  never  rest  till  the  Corn  Law  is  repealed. 'J^ 
I  accepted  his  invitation.     I  knew  that  the  description 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  15 

he  had  given  of  the  homes  of  thousands  was  not  an 
exaggerated  description.  I  felt  in  my  conscience  that 
there  was  a  work  which  someone  must  do.  From  that 
time  we  never  ceased  to  labour  hard  on  behalf  of  the 
resolution  which  we  had  made.  We  were  not  the  first, 
though  we  became,  before  the  public,  the  foremost. 
There  were  others  before  us;  and  we  were  joined,  not 
by  scores,  but  by  hundreds,  and  afterwards  by  thousands, 
and  afterwards  by  countless  multitudes.  At  last  famine 
itself,  against  which  we  warred,  joined  us, — necessities 
became  very  great, — a  great  minister  was  converted, — 
and  finally  the  barrier  was  entirely  thrown  down.  Since 
that  time,  though  there  has  been  much  suffering  in 
many  homes,  yet  no  wife,  and  no  mother,  and  no  little 
child  is  starved  to  death  as  the  result  of  a  famine  made 
by  law." 

Such  was  the  inception  of  a  task  that  occupied  more 
than  four  years.  In  a  short  time  Cobden  and  Bright 
became  famous  in  every  part  of  England  and  Scotland 
as  the  chief  of  a  great  company  of  apostles  of  Free 
Trade  in  corn.  As  the  anti-corn-law  agitation  forms 
the  subject  of  a  volume  in  the  series  to  which  this  little 
book  belongs,  it  is  unnecessary  to  attempt  here  a  full 
account  of  the  work  of  the  League,  or  of  the  question 
at  issue  between  the  Protectionists  and  the  Free-traders. 
But  since  Bright's  future  career  took  its  colour  from  this 
early  work,  and  since  his  opinions  and  methods  were 
largely  determined  by  the  experiences  of  those  four 
years,  it  will  be  proper  to  call  attention  to  those  aspects 
of  the  controversy  which  made  the  most  permanent  im- 
pression on  his  mind.  Of  the  earlier  history  of  the 
struggle  the  briefest  summary  may  suffice. 

The  Corn  Law  enacted  in  181 5,  at  a  time  when  the      /i  ' 
close  of  a  long  period  of  warfare  threatened  a  fall  in  the 
cruel  prices  to  which  food  had  been  forced  by  the  war, 
prohibited  the  importation  of  wheat  at  any  time  when 


i6  John  Bright. 

the  market  price  of  home-gfrown  wheat  fell  below  80s.  a 
quarter.  This  limit  was  lowered  to  yos.  in  1822.  In 
1828  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  Corn  Law  established  a 
duty  on  imported  corn  varying  with  the  market  price. 
For  example,  the  duty  on  wheat  was  10^.  8d.  when  the 
price  was  70^.,  26s.  8d.  when  it  was  60s.,  and  36^.  8d. 
when  it  was  50^. 

From  the  first  there  was  a  body  of  public  opinion  ad- 
verse to  protective  duties.  "The  people",  said  Bright, 
*' never  acquiesced  in  that  Corn  Law.  You  passed  it 
under  a  protest  of  the  most  fearful  kind.*'  But  for  many 
years  there  was  no  attempt  to  organize  a  Free-trade 
party.  Mr.  Huskisson,  until  his  death  in  1830,  and, 
from  that  time  till  the  advent  of  Cobden,  Mr.  Poulett 
Thomson  (Lord  Sydenham)  were  successively  regarded 
by  the  Free-traders  as  their  political  leaders.  At  the 
elections  which  followed  the  reform  of  1832  the  question 
was  raised  on  the  hustings  of  the  Lancashire  boroughs. 
In  1833  a  resolution  condemning  the  Corn  Laws  was 
discussed  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  next  year 
the  policy  of  a  fixed  duty,  which  was  afterwards  dignified 
with  a  place  on  the  official  programme  of  the  Whig 
party,  was  advocated  by  Hume,  and  supported  by 
about  one-third  of  the  members  voting.  In  1837  the 
anxiety  of  the  Lancashire  manufacturers,  who  had 
learned  to  attribute  the  depression  of  their  industry  to 
a  law  which  prevented  the  free  exchange  for  foreign 
corn  of  the  products  of  their  looms,  was  increased  by 
numerous  bankruptcies;  and  at  the  elections  which 
followed  the  Queen's  accession  many  boroughs  returned 
Free-traders.  The  year  1838,  which  witnessed  the  for- 
mation of  the  Manchester  Association,  was  also  the  first 
year  of  Mr.  Villiers's  annual  motion  for  a  committee  to 
consider  and  repeal  the  Corn  Laws.  A  Free-trade  party 
was  now  fairly  organized  both  in  the  House  and  in  the 

country. 

( M  433 ) 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  17 

In  1 84 1  the  Whig-  Ministry  of  Melbourne  was  com- 
pelled to  try  to  meet  a  deficiency  of  revenue  by  modifying 
a  tariff  the  severity  of  which  diminished  the  income  of 
the  state  by  discouraging  the  importation  of  duty-payingf 
gfoods.  After  a  statement  on  the  financial  difficulty  by 
Baring,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Lord  John 
Russell  proposed  a  fixed  duty  on  corn,  which  was  esti- 
mated to  yield  a  larger  revenue  than  the  variable  duty. 
The  ''monopoly"  of  corn,  as  the  Free-traders  loved  to 
call  it,  was  part  of  a  system  of  similar  monopolies,  of 
which  the  most  important  were  those  of  timber  and 
sugar.  The  sugar  duties  were  such  as  practically  to 
exclude  from  our  markets  all  sugar  not  grown  in  a 
British  colony.  The  new  tariff  was  to  be  no  longer 
prohibitive,  though  still  offering'  a  large  advantage  to 
the  colonial  sugar-planter. ^  "You  monopolists",  said 
Bright  later,  "all  hang-  together.  Neither  of  these 
interests  really  cares  one  straw  for  the  rest  any  longer 
than  they  all  hold  together."  On  the  question  of  the 
sugar  duties,  which  were  taken  first,  the  agriculturists 
who  desired  protection  for  corn,  and  those  who  were 
interested  in  the  maintenance  of  the  sugar  or  the  timber 
duties,  were  reinforced  by  the  anti-slavery  party;  for 
sugar  not  grown  in  our  colonies  was  slave-grown  sugar, 
and  the  virtual  exclusion  of  foreign  sugar  was  regarded 
as  part  of  the  price  to  be  paid  for  emancipation.  The 
Government  was  easily  defeated  by  this  combination; 
Parliament  was  dissolved;  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  came  in 
with  a  majority  of  about  eighty.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  Vice- 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  in  the  new  Ministry. 

There  were  now  three  policies  before  the  country: 
the  Free-trade  policy  of  Mr.  Villiers  and  the  League,  the 

^Colonial  sugar  paid  24s.,  foreign  sugar  63^.,  a  hundredweight.     It  was 
proposed  to  reduce  the  latter  duty  to  36^.    The  duty  on  colonial  timber  was 
to  be  raised  from  los.  to  20s.  a  load  ;  while  the  duty  on  Baltic  timber  was 
lowered  from  55^.  to  50J. 
i.         (^ioB)  B 


i8  John  Bright. 

policy  of  a  moderate  fixed  duty  accepted  by  Lord  John 
Russell  and  the  Liberal  party,  and  the  sliding-scale 
policy  of  Peel  and  the  Conservatives.  Though  many 
causes  contributed  to  the  defeat  of  the  Whigs,  the  inci- 
dents that  immediately  preceded  the  dissolution  gave 
to  Peel's  victory  the  appearance  of  a  triumph  of  protec- 
tion and  the  agricultural  interest.  Yet  the  distress  of 
the  country  was  so  serious  that  Peel  was  constrained, 
at  the  risk  of  dividing  his  own  party,  to  attempt  some 
measure  of  relief. 

Parliament  met  for  the  session  of  1842  on  February  3. 
The  League,  exhilarated  by  the  meetings  they  had  held 
in  the  country,  and  by  some  electoral  successes,  includ- 
ing the  return  of  Cobden  for  Stockport,  endeavoured  to 
impress  the  House  of  Commons  by  a  demonstration  of 
their  enthusiasm  in  the  metropolis.  Delegates  from  the 
provincial  associations  met  on  February  8  at  the  Crown 
and  Anchor  in  the  Strand,  and  there  Bright  made  a 
speech  which  was  received  with  great  acclamation.  The 
fame  of  his  eloquence  was  carried  into  the  country  by 
the  delegates;  and  from  that  time  he  was  recognized 
as  the  chief  lieutenant  of  Cobden  in  the  work  of  propa- 
gation. 

Peel  refused  to  meet  a  deputation;  but  Lord  John 
Russell,  the  leader  of  the  Whig  opposition  in  the  Com- 
mons, had  an  interview  with  Bright  and  five  other 
Leaguers.  He  held  out  no  hope  of  advancing  beyond 
his  timid  expedient  of  an  eight-shilling  fixed  duty.^  In 
spite  of  this  discouragement  the  Leaguers  resolved  to 
continue  their  agitation  for  total  and  immediate  repeal. 
This  resolution  was  a  final  declaration  of  their  indepen- 

^  "On  the  part  of  the  Whigs,  I  had  declared  my  intention  of  proposing 
a  fixed  duty  on  corn.  This  was  likewise  an  error.  Cobden  and  Bright 
proposed  the  only  natural  course,  that  of  a  total  repeal  of  the  duties  on 
corn.  But  the  Whig  country  gentlemen  were  not  prepared  for  so  bold  a 
measure."  {Recollections  and  Suggestions,  by  John,  Earl  Russell  (1874), 
p.  236.) 


The  Anti-Corn-L,aw  League.  19 

dence  of  the  Liberal  party.  The  cry  was:  "A  fixed  duty 
is  a  fixed  injustice  ". 

Peel's  new  tariff^  reduced  the  duties  at  the  prices  of 
70^.,  605-.,  and  50^.  to  ^s.,  12s.,  and  20^.  respectively. 
It  was  intended  that  the  price  should  oscillate  between 
the  narrow  limits  of  585-.  and  54^.  Cobden  denounced 
the  measure  as  ''a  bitter  insult  to  a  suff'ering-  people"; 
the  price  of  corn  still  rose;  and  by  midsummer  the  dis- 
tress had  agfain  become  acute. 

The  eff"orts  of  the  Free-traders  to  enlist  the  support 
of  the  working--classes  brought  them  into  collision  with 
the  Chartists,  of  whose  leaders  some,  like  Feargus 
O'Connor,  who  held  that  free  trade  would  ruin  Ireland, 
were  Protectionists;  others  traced  the  distress  to  other 
causes  rather  than  protection,  and  all  were  disposed  to 
call  first  for  political  reforms.  The  Rochdale  Chartists 
had  carried  an  amendment  against  Bright  at  a  meeting 
in  1839;  and  five  years  later  Bright  had  a  public  wrangle 
with  O'Connor  himself  before  the  Northampton  boot- 
makers, resulting  in  a  doubtful  vote.  It  was  even 
suspected  that  Chartist  agitators  were  taking  the  pay 
of  the  Protectionists.  In  August,  1842,  a  general  strike, 
or,  as  it  was  then  called,  a  turn-out,  was  organized  in 
Lancashire.  Bright  issued  a  long  address  to  the  work- 
ing-men of  Rochdale,  calling  on  them  to  return  to  their 
employment.  **  Neither  act  of  Parliament  nor  act  of  a 
multitude  can  keep  up  wages.  You  know  that  trade 
has  long  been  bad,  and  with  a  bad  trade  wages  cannot 
rise.  If  you  are  resolved  to  compel  an  advance  of  wages, 
you  cannot  compel  manufacturers  to  give  you  employ- 
ment. Such  attempts  have  always  failed  in  the  end; 
and  yours  must  fail.  To  obtain  the  Charter  now  is  just 
as  impossible  as  to  raise  wages  by  force.  The  principles 
of  the  Charter  will  one  day  be  established;  but  years 
may  pass  over,  months  must  pass  over,  before  that  day 
arrives.      If  every  employer  and  workman  in  the  king- 


20  John  Bright. 

dom  were  to  swear  on  bended  knees  that  wages  should 
not  fall,  they  would  assuredly  fall  if  the  Corn  Law  con- 
tinues. No  power  on  earth  can  maintain  your  wages 
at  their  present  rate  if  the  Corn  Law  be  not  repealed." 
I  The  address,  which  is  composed  in  the  plain  and  nervous 
i  style  to  which  Cobbett  had  habituated  the  artisans, 
is  a  popular  exposition  of  the  economic  doctrine  of  the 
Manchester  School,  applied  to  the  distresses  and  discon- 
tents of  the  moment.  It  is  a  document  of  some  per- 
manent value,  as  indicating  with  precision  important 
and  lasting"  differences  between  the  Radicalism  of  Bright 
and  that  of  the  trades-unions. 

On  July  25,  1843,  Bright  entered  Parliament,  at  the 
second  attempt,  as  member  for  Durham  city.  **The 
Whigs",  said  Cobden,  ''tried  to  make  it  a  Whig  triumph, 
which  Bright  spoilt  by  his  declaration  at  the  Crown  and 
Anchor  that  it  was  not  a  party  victory."  The  time  had 
not  yet  come  when  Bright  could  sit  in  Parliament  as  a 
loyal  member  even  of  the  Liberal  party.  It  was  impos- 
sible that  the  leaders  of  that  party  should  command 
from  him  the  respect  which  alone  could  secure  the 
loyalty  of  a  man  of  his  independent  disposition.  Lord 
John  Russell,  who  led  the  party  in  the  Commons,  was 
regarded  by  Bright  as  a  timid,  time-serving,  and  un- 
.  imaginative  aristocrat,  raised  to  eminence,  despite  the 
mediocrity  of  his  talents,  by  industry  and  vigilance,  with 
the  prestige  of  a  great  historic  name.  To  Lord  John's 
competitor,  Palmerston,  though  he  was  a  man  of  more 
popular  gifts.  Bright  had  a  still  more  deeply  rooted 
antipathy.  It  was  not  until  the  accession  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone to  the  leadership  of  the  party  that  Bright  abated 
his  independence  of  party  obligations. 

Bright  made  his  first  parliamentary  speech  on  August 
7  of  this  year.  He  did  not  fail  to  speak  his  mind. 
**  Crime  has  often  veiled  itself  under  the  name  of  virtue; 
but  of  all  the  crimes  against  the  laws  of  God  and  the 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  21 

true  interests  of  man,  none  has  ever  existed  more  odious 
and  more  destructive  than  that  which  has  assumed  the 
amiable  term  of  protection."  A  cabinet  minister  had 
argued  that  the  Corn  Law  was  necessary  to  enable 
land-owners  to  discharge  the  settlements  made  on  the 
marriage  of  their  daughters.  **  I  have  attended",  said 
Bright,  *'many  large  meetings  of  agriculturists,  and 
I  have  never  found  a  single  farmer  who  seemed  to  be 
aware  that  this  House  had  ever  bestowed  any  attention 
on  the  means  of  providing  portions  for  farmers'  daugh- 
ters." *'  The  increase  of  our  population  is  every  year  so 
great  as  to  require  for  its  support  an  annual  increase  of 
food  equal  to  the  whole  produce  of  the  county  of  War- 
wick. The  Government  has  no  power  to  add  a  county 
of  Warwick  every  year  to  the  country." 

By  this  time  Bright  had  addressed  meetings  on  the 
question  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom.  The  conversion 
of  the  manufacturing  towns  having  been  accomplished, 
he  and  Cobden  began  their  appeal  to  the  farmers,  hold- 
ing open-air  meetings  in  market  towns  on  market  days. 
Cobden's  biographer  describes  this  enterprise  as  the 
most  striking  and  original  feature  in  the  whole  agita- 
tion, and  gives  an  animated  narrative  of  some  incidents 
of  this  campaign.^  They  repeatedly  obtained  a  vote  for 
total  repeal  from  audiences  that  at  the  outset  were  un- 
convinced or  even  hostile.  In  the  autumn  of  1843  they 
began  a  remarkable  series  of  demonstrations  in  Covent 
Garden  Theatre.  Their  success  at  last  roused  the  Pro- 
tectionists to  a  sense  of  peril.  **The  League  is  a  great 
fact,"  exclaimed  the  Times ^  in  a  leader  that  became 
historic;^  "a  new  power  has  arisen  in  the  state."  ''  If 
I  were  the  Conservative  party  of  England,"  wrote  Car- 
lyle  about  this  time,  *'I  would  not  for  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  an  hour  allow  those  corn  laws  to  continue." 

1  Morley,  Life,  of  Cobden,  chap,  xii,  ^  November  i8,  1843. 


22  John  Bright. 

A  list  of  the  labours  of  a  single  month  may  serve  as 
an  example  of  the  immense  amount  of  work  undertaken 
by  Bright.  In  January,  1844,  he  spoke  at  Bury,  Carlisle, 
Glasgow,  Edinburgh,  Greenock,  Paisley,  Ayr,  Kilmar- 
nock, Dumfries,  Sheffield,  York,  Hull,  Blackburn,  and 
Wakefield.  Wherever  he  went  his  eloquence,  youthful 
and  immature,  but  always  fearless,  energetic,  and  stimu- 
lating, never  failed  of  its  effect  in  strengthening  the 
popular  resolution. 

Notwithstanding  the  rapid  extension  of  free-trade 
opinion  in  the  country,  the  party  in  Parliament  received 
few  accessions,  and  year  by  year  the  divisions  showed  a 
strength  of  only  from  120  to  130  votes.  But  the  resist- 
ance of  the  Protectionists  was  becoming  less  confident; 
and  the  Free-traders  often  had  occasion  to  welcome 
grave  admissions  made  in  debate  by  ministers,  especially 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  already  accepted 
the  theory  of  free  imports,  though  excepting  corn  on  the 
ground  of  the  danger  of  dependence  upon  a  foreign 
food-supply.  These  concessions  in  argument,  though 
barren  of  practical  result,  filled  the  county  members 
with  suspicion  and  dismay,  and  a  band  of  mutineers, 
with  Disraeli  at  their  head,  threatened  open  revolt. 
The  refusal  of  Peel  to  take  further  measures  to  satisfy 
the  claims  of  agriculture,  then  as  now  insatiable,  elicited, 
on  March  17,  1845,  Disraeli's  celebrated  declaration  that 
a  Conservative  government  was  an  organized  hypocrisy. 

During  the  summer  of  1845  the  price  of  corn  rose 
rapidly;  and  in  October  it  was  known  that  both  the 
wheat  harvest  in  England  and  the  potato  crop  in  Ireland 
had  failed.  The  scarcity  in  Ireland  was  such  that  the 
peasantry  began  to  perish  of  starvation,  and  urgent 
demands  were  made  on  public  and  private  charity.  The 
practical  reduction  of  the  Corn  Laws  to  an  absurdity 
had  come  at  last,  if  Parliament  should  be  asked  at  the 
same  time  to  vote  money  to  feed  a  starving  people,  and 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  Lea^iue. 


23 


to  maintain  the  laws  that  ensured  famine  prices. 
*' Famine",  said  Bright  afterwards,  *'was  the  terrible 
agent  that  compelled  our  boasted  constitution  to  permit 
the  people  of  this  country  to  purchase  their  bread  freely 
at  the  world's  market  price."  Lord  Ashley  warned  the 
farmers  of  Dorset  that  the  destiny  of  the  Corn  Laws 
was  fixed.  The  Cabinet  met  on  October  31,  and  the 
TiTnes,  anticipating  its  inevitable  decision,  declared  that 
the  ports  were  to  be  opened.  '*  Henceforth  the  League 
may  cease  to  exist.  Its  spirit  has  already  been  trans- 
ferred to  its  antagonists."  Three  weeks  later  than  this 
revelation,  though  anticipating  by  a  week  the  publica- 
tion of  Peel's  conversion,  Lord  John  Russell  in  his 
Edinburgh  letter  announced  that  he  abandoned  his  pro- 
posal of  a  moderate  fixed  duty.  The  meaning  of  this 
tardy  repentance  was  too  obviously  this:  ''  I  have  taken 
no  part  in  the  hunt,  but  I  mean  to  be  in  at  the  death, 
and  to  claim  the  brush  ". 

The  victory  of  the  League  was  won ;  and  the  Liberal 
party  and  its  leaders  had  no  share  in  it.  The  League 
had  been  constituted  and  directed  by  men  who  had  had 
no  previous  experience  of  political  life.  They  had  been 
compelled  to  renounce  allegiance  to  their  party.  They 
had  found  their  speakers  in  the  counting-houses  of 
Manchester  and  Rochdale  and  in  the  pulpits  of  dissent- 
ing chapels.  They  had  organized  their  agitation,  in- 
vented their  own  methods,  collected  their  own  funds, 
without  an  atom  of  assistance  from  the  Liberal  states- 
men. Amateur  politicians  had  accomplished  what  pro- 
fessed statesmen  had  not  dared,  or  had  not  chosen,  to 
attempt.  Not  a  single  member  of  the  Liberal  Cabinet 
which  shortly  afterwards  entered  into  the  harvest  of 
their  labours  had  ever  stood  on  the  platform  of  a  League 
meeting.  Even  Macaulay,  who  had  voted  with  Mr. 
Villiers,  had  curtly  refused  to  welcome  the  League  to 
Edinburgh. 


24  John  Bright. 

Russell's  letter  doubtless  served  to  strengthen  Peel's 
hand  in  dealing  with  recalcitrant  colleagues;  but  the 
divisions  in  the  Cabinet  were  such  as  to  necessitate  his 
resignation.  Lord  John  failed  to  form  a  ministry;  and 
before  the  end  of  the  year  Peel  again  accepted  office  and 
formed  the  short-lived  *' Potato-Peel  Ministry",  with 
the  support  of  all  his  old  colleagues  except  Lord  Stanley. 
He  proposed  large  immediate  reductions  of  the  import 
duties  on  all  food-stuflfs.  The  duty  on  wheat  was  to  be 
4J'.,  rising  a  shilling  with  each  shilling  of  fall  in  price 
below  53i".,  till  it  reached  a  maximum  of  los.  Colonial 
corn  was  to  be  admitted  immediately,  and  foreign  corn 
at  the  end  of  three  years,  at  a  nominal  duty  of  one 
shilling.  The  Free-traders  divided  the  House  for  the 
last  time  on  their  motion  for  total  and  immediate  repeal; 
but  they  were  well  satisfied  with  Peel's  measure,  and 
loud  in  their  gratitude  to  him.  **  When  the  right  hon. 
baronet  resigned  ",  said  Bright,  turning  to  the  Protec- 
tionist benches,  *'he  was  no  longer  your  minister.  He 
came  back  as  the  minister  of  the  sovereign,  as  the 
minister  of  the  people,  and  no  longer  as  the  minister  of 
a  class  which  made  him  such  for  their  own  selfish 
objects."  The  second  reading  of  the  Bill  was  carried 
by  a  majority  of  97,  112  Conservatives  supporting  Peel, 
and  231,  with  11  Liberals,  opposing  him.  The  House 
of  Lords ^  passed  the  Bill  b}''  large  majorities. 

The  success  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  was  the 

1 "  Preferring  their  coronets  to  their  convictions,"  says  Froude,  ill- 
naturedly.  But  Peel  could  not  rend  the  coronets  from  their  brows;  and 
many  obstinate  convictions  had  been  honestly  changed.  The  obvious  fact 
is,  that  the  argument  from  the  famine  was  quite  irresistible  to  a  House  that 
could  not  turn  ministers  out.  Something  had  to  be  done  without  delay  to 
cope  with  the  famine.  It  was  one  thing  for  the  Protectionists  in  the  Com- 
mons to  beat  the  Ministry,  if  they  could,  and  then  try  their  own  plan  what- 
ever it  might  be.  It  was  a  different  thing  for  the  Lords  to  reject  the  method 
proposed  by  the  responsible  Government  of  dealing  with  a  present  calamity. 
A  deadlock  at  such  a  time  would  have  been,  from  every  point  of  view,  a 
frightful  disaster. 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  25 

most  remarkable  achievement  of  the  art  of  persuasion 
in  the  history  of  any  people.  The  League  were  attack- 
ing- the  privileges  of  a  still  powerful  aristocracy;  they 
were  confronted  by  the  active  hostility  of  one,  and  by 
the  inertia  of  the  other,  of  the  two  great  parties  in  the 
State;  they  had  to  persuade  the  farmers  to  separate 
their  sympathy  from  the  landlords,  and  to  compete  with 
political  reformers  for  the  support  of  the  urban  working 
classes.  By  common  consent  the  chief  credit  of  this 
achievement  belongs  of  right  to  Richard  Cobden.  The 
second  honours  are  with  almost  equal  unanimity  awarded 
to  Bright.^  There  was  a  recognized  distribution  of 
functions  between  the  two  agitators.  Cobden's  mastery 
of  convincing  argument  can  rarely  have  been  equalled. 
The  part  of  Bright — though  his  oratory  also  was  not 
wanting  in  lucidity  and  pertinence  of  reasoning — was  to 
excite  the  emotions  when  Cobden  had  convinced  the 
understanding.  He  always  spoke  after  his  colleague. 
Cobden  made  others  think  as  he  thought;  Bright  made 
them  feel  as  he  felt.  Cobden  taught  the  people  that 
they  were  suffering  under  a  foolish  economic  error; 
Bright  told  them  that  they  were  the  victims  of  *'a 
crime  of  the  deepest  dye  against  the  rights  of  industry 
and  against  the  well-being  of  the  British  people ". 
**The  freedom  for  which  you  struggle",  he  said,  '*is 
the  freedom  to  live;  it  is  the  right  to  eat  your  bread 
in  the  sweat  of  your  brow.  It  is  the  freedom  that 
was  given  to  you  even  in  the  primeval  curse;  and  shall 
man  make  that  curse  more  bitter  to  his  fellow-man?" 

Referring  to   the  struggle  a  few  years  later,   Bright 
said:  **The  agitation  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  was 

1  The  Leaguers  themselves  were  disposed  to  give  the  palm  of  eloquence 
to  W.  J.  Fox,  an  orator  who  had  at  his  command  all  the  resources  of 
rhetoric,  and  who  abounded  in  surprising  turns  and  fehcitous  illustrations, 
but  whose  style  was  awkward  and  turgid.  Bright's  eloquence  did  not 
reach  its  maturity  till  some  years  later ;  and  from  the  first  it  stood  the  test 
of  the  House  of  Commons  better  than  Fox's. 


26  John  Bright. 

not  an  ag^itation  of  force,  it  was  an  ag-itation  of  convic- 
tion. It  was  an  agitation  which  not  so  much  conquered 
our  opponents  as  converted  them."  Still  less  was  it  an 
agitation  of  violence.  It  is  a  noteworthy  feature  of  this 
movement,  that,  despite  the  excesses  of  denunciation 
which  Bright  and  others  permitted  themselves  to  use, 
the  peace  of  no  town  was  ever  imperilled  by  their  opera- 
tions. At  a  time  when  all  the  conditions  that  commonly 
provoke  popular  violence  were  present,  the  League  was 
really  a  strong  force  on  the  side  of  order.  It  organized 
and  established  the  strength  of  a  great  body  of  public 
opinion  outside  Parliament,  and  inadequately  represented 
in  Parliament^  Hitherto  such  a  body  of  opinion  had 
made  itself  eifective  only  by  dangerous  methods.  Before 
the  Reform  Act,  for  example,  there  were  tumults  and 
the  fear  of  insurrection.  "Do  they  wait",  exclaimed 
Macaulay,  **for  that  last  and  most  dreadful  paroxysm 
of  popular  rage,  for  that  last  and  most  cruel  test  of 
military  fidelity?"  After  the  Reform  Act  the  Chartist 
agitation  was  dishonoured  by  destructive  riots  and  a 
grievous  severity  of  retribution.  No  man's  windows 
were  ever  endangered  by  Bright's  philippics.  Both 
then  and  again  and  again  in  his  later  life  he  was 
charg^ed  with  appealing"  to  popular  passion.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that,  at  almost  any  time  before  he 
became  the  idol  of  mass  meetings,  that  phrase  had  had 
a  sinister  significance  in  which  no  one  can  justly  use  it 
of  him. 

Mr.  Kinglake,  in  a  well-known  passage,  commends 
the  skill,  patience,  and  courage  with  which  Bright  and 
Cobden  **  carried  a  g^reat  scientific  truth  through  the 
storms  of  politics".  Undoubtedly  at  the  foundation  of 
their  main  argument  lay  the  free-trade  doctrine  of  the 
political  economists — the  doctrine  that  a  nation  must 
acquire  a  greater  amount  of  wealth  at  the  expense  of 
the  same  amount  of  labour,  or  as  much  wealth  for  less 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  27 

labour,  when  imports  are  free  than  when  industries  are 
protected  by  tariffs.  But  men  who  did  not  comprehend 
the  demonstrations  of  economic  science,  and  who  failed 
to  accept,  or  accepted  only  on  authority,  the  fulness  of 
the  universal  dog^ma,  could  yet  receive  with  intelligence 
as  well  as  enthusiasm  the  reasoning-  proper  to  the 
special  case  of  imported  food-stuff.  The  appeal  was  to 
visible  distress  and  to  easily  demonstrable  causes. 

The  term  protection  is  an  abbreviation  of  "protection 
of  native  industry  ".  In  the  view  of  the  League,  this 
name  was  delusive.  The  whole  advantage  of  the  tariff 
was  reaped  by  the  land-owners.  Bright  often  quoted 
the  short  speech  of  a  Wiltshire  labourer:  **  I  be  pro- 
tected, and  I  be  starving  ".  The  wage  of  this  man  was 
'js.  a  week.  In  Dorset  the  protected  labourer  starved 
on  a  shilling  less.  *'We  have  always  maintained", 
said  Bright,  **that  the  landlord  has  a  right  to  labour  at 
the  market  price  of  labour;  but  we  have  denied  the 
right  of  the  landlord  to  screen  himself  from  competition, 
while  he  exposes  his  labourers  to  it  in  the  severest 
form."  On  another  occasion,  after  depicting  the  penury 
of  the  agricultural  labourer,  he  said:  ''I  tell  you  what 
your  boasted  protection  is.  It  is  a  protection  of  native 
idleness  at  the  expense  of  the  impoverishment  of  native 
industry."  The  farmers  were  told  that  whatever  benefit 
they  received  from  protection  was  less  than  the  advan- 
tage they  would  get  from  the  general  revival  of  com- 
mercial prosperity  which  would  follow  free  trade.  The 
system  of  duties  rising  and  falling  as  prices  fell  and 
rose  was  intended  to  promote  stability  of  prices.  It 
actually  increased  the  frequency  and  the  swing  of 
fluctuations.  Importers,  by  temporarily  forcing  prices 
up,  could  secure,  under  the  sliding-scale,  a  reduction  of 
duty,  which  might  cover  their  loss  when  the  ensuing 
fall  brought  prices  to  a  level  lower  than  the  average  on 
which  the  farmers'  rents  were  based.     Violent  oscilla- 


28  John  Bright. 

tions  tend  in  the  long-  run  to  the  advantage  neither  of 
the  consumer  nor  the  producer,  but  of  the  factor,  who 
can  more  readily  forecast  and  may  even  manipulate 
them.     The  sliding-scale  made  many  farmers  bankrupt. 

The  battle  of  the  Corn  Law  was  a  contention  between 
the  middle-class  and  the  landed  aristocracy.  It  is 
necessary  to  dwell  upon  this  aspect  of  the  conflict,  in 
order  to  understand  the  reproach  of  setting-  class  against 
class,  by  which  Bright  was  beset  throughout  his  public 
career. 

Bright  and  Cobden,  and  with  them  nearly  all  the  men 
who  made  the  fortune  of  the  League  by  munificent  sub- 
scriptions, belonged  to  a  new  order.  The  wealthy 
middle  class  which  both  Whigs  and  Tories  had  long 
been  habituated  to  treat  with  respect,  were  the  great 
merchants,  especially  those  of  the  city  of  London, 
whose  financial  assistance  had  often  saved  the  State 
from  disaster.  But  the  pride  and  the  power  of  the 
manufacturers  of  Lancashire  and  the  West  Riding, 
luxuriating  in  wealth  newly  acquired,  and  controlling- 
the  livelihood  of  many  thousands  of  working  men,  were 
a  new  portent  regarded  by  the  aristocracy  with  a  mix- 
ture of  apprehension  and  disdain.  That  power  had  been 
called  into  existence  by  the  application  of  machinery 
and  steam-power  to  industries  before  practised  by  inde- 
pendent handicraftsmen,  and  by  the  consequent  appear- 
ance of  the  Factory  System.  Spinners  and  weavers 
had  been  massed  in  crowded  towns  and  huge  manu- 
factories. The  capitalists  who  built  the  mills  and  pro- 
vided the  machinery  claimed  a  large  share  of  the  profits 
of  the  industry.  Each  workman's  labour  produced  a 
result  enormously  larger  than  when  Silas  Marner  threw 
his  shuttle  in  his  village  home,  and  wove  the  homespun 
yarn  of  the  housewives  of  Raveloe;  and  multitudes  must 
starve  unless  new  outlets  could  be  found  for  the  cloth  of 
Leeds  and  the  calico  of  Manchester.     This  was  doubt- 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  29 

less  inevitable;  but  there  was  honest  pity  as  well  as 
envy  in  the  dislike  of  aristocratic  politicians  and  Tory 
essayists  to  the  factory  system. 

The  bitterness  of  party  spirit  to-day  is  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  mutual  hatred  and  jealousy  of  the  squires 
and  the  cotton-spinners  that  are  revealed  in  the  debates 
of  fifty  years  ag-o  on  the  Corn  Law  and  the  Factory 
Bills.  In  the  mouth  of  a  county  member  cotton-spinner 
was  a  name  of  contempt,  like  epicier^  bag-man,  or 
philistine.  These  two  classes  have  since  been  drawn 
tog^ether  by  the  approximation  of  their  social  and  poli- 
tical aims,  and  even  by  those  intermarriag-es  which 
Thackeray  thoug"ht  so  ridiculous,  but  which  have  helped 
to  conciliate  the  feuds  of  classes.  Each  class  accused 
the  other  of  grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor.  The  Leaguers 
told  their  workmen  that  the  distress  could  only  be 
remedied  by  a  reform  which  would  at  once  cheapen  their 
food  and  provide  new  markets  for  their  fabrics.  The 
land-owners  retorted  by  attributing  the  sufferings  of  the 
working  cotton-spinner  to  the  cupidity  of  his  employer, 
and  demanding  that  he  should  be  protected  by  Factory 
Acts  and  Truck  Acts.  The  League  charged  the  land- 
owners with  enacting  the  Corn  Law  to  raise  their  rents. 
The  land-owners  in  retaliation  accused  the  manufacturers 
of  desiring  to  repeal  the  Corn  Law  in  order  that  they 
might  lower  the  wages  of  their  workmen  and  enlarge 
their  own  profits.^  This  suspicion  was  shared  and  en- 
couraged by  the  Chartists. 

1  As  a  matter  of  interest  to  students  of  mythology,  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  this  unfulfilled  prediction  hardened  in  process  of  time  into  the  legend 
that  ' '  immediately  after  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  the  firm  of  John  Bright 
&  Brothers  reduced  the  wages  of  all  their  hands". 

This  failure  of  prophecy  may  remind  the  reader  of  the  disappointment  of 
Cobden's  confident  expectation  that  the  civilized  world  would  soon  follow 
the  example  of  England  in  the  matter  of  Free-trade.  It  would  be  easy  to 
set  against  this  a  hundred  examples  of  his  astonishing  sagacity  in  foretelling 
results.  Those  who  are  interested  in  falsified  predictions  will  find  an  inex- 
haustible mine  of  such  things  in  the  protectionist  speeches  against  Villiers' 
annual  motion. 


30  John  Bright. 

The  view  of  English  poUtics  which  Bright  held  at  the 
time  when  his  indignation  drew  him  from  his  mill  to  the 
platform  of  the  League  and  to  the  benches  of  Parliament, 
is  simple  and  may  be  briefly  stated.  It  is  a  view  which 
never  ceased  to  control  his  public  words  and  acts.  Since 
the  Revolution  England  had  been  governed  alternately 
by  two  aristocratic  coteries,  each  of  which  had  treated 
the  opinions  and  the  interests  of  the  middle-class  with  a 
degree  of  deference  and  sympathy  determined  by  the 
vicissitudes  of  their  conflicts  with  one  another.  The 
aristocracy  were  the  land-owners;  possession  of  land 
rather  than  noble  birth  being  the  test  of  the  caste.  The 
predominance  of  the  land-owners  in  the  House  of  Lords 
was  in  accordance  with  the  intention  of  the  Constitution, 
and  did  not  form  a  grievance.  But,  partly  as  a  natural 
result  of  the  migration  of  population  from  old  boroughs 
to  new  towns,  and  partly  by  an  immoral  use  of  the 
power  of  landlord  over  tenant,  the  land-owners  had  also 
acquired  an  unconstitutional  predominance  in  the  Com- 
mons, and  had  so  cheated  the  other  classes  of  their  share 
in  the  Constitution.  The  reform  of  1832  had  failed,  and 
indeed  had  not  been  sincerely  intended,  to  destroy  the 
aristocratical  control  of  the  Commons.  Lord  John 
Russell,  a  leader  of  that  reform,  had  acknowledged  that 
the  redistribution  had  been  so  manipulated  as  to  secure 
a  permanent  majority  for  the  agricultural  interest;  and 
the  agricultural  interest  was  still  at  the  disposal  of  the 
land-owners. 

The  land-owning  oligarchy  had  used  this  power,  ac- 
quired in  defiance  of  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  for 
unpatriotic  and  selfish  ends.  The  administration  of  the 
military  and  civil  services  had  been  conducted  by  them, 
not  to  secure  for  the  tax-payer  the  best  service  in  return 
for  his  expense,  but  to  provide  careers  at  the  public  cost 
for  their  younger  sons.  But  the  crowning  example  and 
the  most  cruel  result  of  the  selfishness  of  the  ruling  class 


The  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  31 

were  to  be  found  in  the  Corn  Laws.  **This  House", 
said  Bright,  *'is  a  club  of  land-owners  legislating-  for 
land-owners."  **The  corn  law  you  cherish  is  a  law  to 
make  a  scarcity  of  food  in  the  country  that  your  own 
rents  may  be  increased."  '^The  quarrel  is  between  the 
bread-eating  millions  and  the  few  who  monopolize  the 
soil."  Whether  justly  or  unjustly  Bright  firmly  believed 
that  the  land-owners  were  guilty  not  of  an  error  but  of  a 
sin  against  the  light;  and  throughout  his  career  he  was 
never  able  to  regard  without  suspicion  and  prejudice  the 
acts  and  the  aims  of  a  class  against  which  he  had  in  all 
sincerity  sustained  such  an  indictment. 

Bright's  disposition  was  in  many  respects  eminently 
conservative.  He  was  zealous  for  the  Constitution,  an 
enemy  of  disorder,  and  thoroughly  disinclined  to  violent 
changes.  "I  like  political  changes,"  he  said,  *'when 
such  changes  are  made  as  the  result  not  of  passion,  but 
of  deliberation  and  reason."  He  had  no  theory  of  the 
rights  of  man  to  vindicate ;  the  most  conservative  poli- 
tician in  England  was  not  less  infected  with  Jacobinism. 
He  became  a  leader  of  democracy,  and  the  protagonist 
of  a  democratic  reform,  because  he  was  first  an  enemy 
of  oligarchy;  and  he  was  an  enemy  of  oligarchy,  not 
so  much  because  the  rule  of  the  few  appeared  to  him 
theoretically  vicious,  as  because  the  particular  aristo- 
cracy with  which  he  came  into  conflict,  the  aristocracy 
which  made  and  maintained  the  Corn  Law,  had  proved 
itself,  in  his  view,  to  be  selfish,  tyrannical,  and  incom- 
petent. **  We  are  rapidly  approaching  a  time",  he  said 
in  1843,  **when  the  middle  and  working  classes  will  be 
found  in  a  firm  confederacy  against  the  domination  of  a 
class." 


32  John  Bright. 

Chapter  II. 
The  Radical  Reformers. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  the  great  triumph  of  the 
free-trade  doctrine  of  Bright  and  his  friends  another  of 
their  principles  sustained  a  not  less  remarkable  defeat. 
In  accepting  the  first  and  rejecting  the  second  of  the 
Manchester  doctrines,  the  Parliament  of  1846  appears  to 
be  supported  by  the  judgment  of  posterity,  for  neither 
the  victory  nor  the  defeat  has  since  been  reversed. 

While  the  Corn-law  Bill  was  passing  through  the 
House  of  Lords,  the  House  of  Commons  was  considering 
a  proposal  of  John  Fielden,  member  for  Oldham,  the 
patron  of  William  Cobbett,  to  amend  the  Factory  Act. 
Lord  Ashley's  Act  of  1833  ^^^^  restricted  the  labour  of 
children  under  fourteen  to  eight  hours  a  day,  and  that 
of  young  persons  under  eighteen  to  sixty-nine  hours  a 
week.  Fielden's  Bill,  known  as  the  Ten  Hours  Bill, 
proposed  to  limit  the  labour  of  all  women  and  girls, 
and  of  boys  under  eighteen,  to  ten  hours  a  day  or 
fifty-eight  a  week.  This  Bill  was  opposed  by  Peel, 
Cobden,  Bright,  and  Mr,  Villiers,  and  rejected  by  a 
small  majority.  In  the  following  session,  however,  it 
passed  both  Houses,  despite  a  vigorous  protest  by 
Brougham  in  the  Lords. 

Bright  had  already  resisted  a  similar  proposal  made 
by  Lord  Ashley  two  years  earlier.  His  speech  on  that 
occasion  had  been  of  necessity  acrimonious.  No  one 
can  now  doubt  that  the  motives  of  Lord  Ashley — who  is 
better  known  by  his  later  title  as  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
— were  purely  philanthropic.  But  at  that  time  Bright 
could  not  forget  that  he  was  a  Protectionist,  an  enemy 
of  Reform,  and  a  defender  of  the  hated  monopolies. 
His  Bill  had  been  made  by  Ferrand  and  other  Protec- 


The  Radical  Reformers.  33 

tlonists  the  occasion  for  a  furious  onslaught  on  the  fac- 
tory system,  and  on  the  inhumanity  of  manufacturers. 
The  cotton -spinners  were  put  on  their  defence;  and 
Bright  was  constrained  to  reply  at  length  and  with 
much  warmth  to  imputations,  grievously  exaggerated 
by  the  jealousies  of  the  hour,  upon  himself,  his  neigh- 
bours, and  his  friends.  He  was  justified  in  imputing  to 
many  of  the  supporters  of  the  new  legislation  a  desire 
rather  to  injure  the  masters  than  to  benefit  the  workmen. 
It  was  neither  his  fault  nor  Ashley's  that  a  measure 
designed  by  its  author  for  the  protection  of  the  poor  had 
been  made  a  field  for  ill-tempered  recrimination,  and  for 
invidious  comparisons  between  the  degrees  of  misery 
suffered  under  the  protective  system  by  the  labourers  of 
Dorset  and  the  weavers  of  Lancashire.  The  proposal 
presented  itself  to  his  mind  as  an  attempt  to  divert  the 
blame  of  the  misery  of  the  operatives  from  the  Corn  Law 
to  the  factory  system.  '*  Let  not  the  House  suppose 
that  if  they  pass  the  clause  now  before  them  they  will  do 
more  than  plaister  over  the  sore  which  their  own  unjust 
legislation  has  created,  instead  of  endeavouring  to 
renovate  the  constitution  and  go  to  the  root  of  the  dis- 
ease." 

This  had  been  said  in  1844.  On  the  occasion  we  are 
considering  Bright  reasserted  his  objection  to  legislative 
interference  with  the  working  hours  of  adults,  replying 
to  a  speech  which  may  be  read  in  the  published  collection 
of  Macaulay's  speeches.  The  Bill  pretended  to  aim  only 
at  a  reduction  of  the  working  hours  of  women  and  young 
persons;  but,  so  far  at  least  as  the  textile  industries 
were  concerned,  its  effect  would  be  to  reduce  also  the 
working  hours  of  men,  for  the  machinery  could  not  run 
profitably  when  the  women  and  children  were  withdrawn. 
That  this  was  the  intention  as  well  as  the  effect  of  the 
Bill  was  proved  by  the  refusal  to  accept  an  amendment 
of  Brig-ht's  to  allow  the  women  to  work  in  relays.     He 

(M433)  0 


34  John  Bright. 

declared  that,  if  the  Bill  passed,  the  factories  then  work- 
ing- without  profit  must  close  their  doors.  The  workmen 
had  always  refused  a  reduction  of  hours  with  a  corre- 
sponding- reduction  of  wages;  and  they  would  consider 
that  Parliament  their  enemy  which  should  tie  their  hands 
for  two  hours  and  take  two  hours'  wages  from  them.  It 
appeared  axiomatic  to  Bright  that  ''  ten  hours'  work  can 
never  yield  twelve  hours'  wages".  *'Ten  hours'  labour 
is  better  than  twelve  hours;  but  the  ten  hours  can  best 
be  broug-ht  about  by  voluntary  arrangement."  A  deceit 
had  been  practised  on  the  working-  men,  who  had  been 
induced  to  think  that  leg-islation  could  compel  an  increase 
in  the  wag-es  earned  by  a  g-iven  amount  of  work.  The 
Bill  was  '^  contrary  to  all  the  principles  of  sound  legisla- 
tion", and  ''advocated  by  those  who  had  no  knowledge 
of  the  economy  of  manufacture". 

Bright's  opposition  to  this  and  similar  bills  was  in 
later  years  often  used  against  him  at  elections;  but  he 
never  apologized  for  it,  or  confessed  that  he  had  ceased 
to  regard  the  Factory  Acts,  so  far  as  they  limited  the 
hours  of  adult  labour,  as  mistaken  legislation.  ''Most 
of  our  evils",  he  said,  "arise  from  legislative  interfer- 
ence"; and  this  maxim,  eminently  characteristic  of  the 
Manchester  School,  continued  to  approve  itself  to  him 
to  the  end  of  his  career.  He  was,  in  short,  a  faithful 
adherent  of  the  old  radical  doctrine  of  laisser  faire — a 
doctrine  held  by  more  modern  Radicals,  if  at  all,  with  so 
much  laxity  in  admitting  exceptions  that  it  has  ceased  to 
be  a  guiding  principle,  and  has  become  merely  an  occa- 
sional weapon  of  debate.  Many  years  afterwards,  when 
he  was  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  his  interferences 
with  the  discretion  of  the  permanent  officials  were  rare; 
but  it  was  observed  that,  when  he  did  interpose  his 
authority,  he  used  it  nearly  always  not  to  order  but  to 
countermand  the  exercise  of  the  powers  of  his  Board. 

The  conflict  between  Bright  and   his  opponents  was 


The  Radical  Reformers.  35 

one  scene  of  the  perennial  controversy  between  those 
who  treat  economic  laws  as  immutable  by  human  voli- 
tion,— insomuch  that  to  legislate  in  defiance  of  them  is  as 
though  we  should  pass  a  resolution  repealing  the  law 
of  gravitation  in  the  hope  of  jumping  safely  from  the 
top  of  the  Monument, — and  those  who  think  more  hope- 
fully that,  whether  by  legislation,  or  combination,  or 
mere  clamour,  the  more  painful  inferences  of  economic 
theory  may  in  practice  be  somehow  circumvented. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Bright's  reasoning, — 
which  has  at  no  time  commanded  the  assent  of  the 
working-classes,  and  may  therefore  be  safely  neglected 
by  practical  politicians, — it  is  certainly  not  refuted  by  the 
consideration  that  under  the  Act  hours  of  work  have  in 
fact  been  reduced,  yet  wages  have  in  fact  risen.  The 
reply  is  obvious.  The  repeal  of  the  protective  duties, 
and  the  free  exchange  of  English  fabrics  for  foreign 
food-stuffs,  increased  the  demand  to  such  an  extent^  that, 
by  the  natural  and  automatic  law  to  which  Bright 
trusted,  the  value  of  a  man's  labour  rose  till  he  earned 
more  in  ten  hours  than  he  had  earned  in  twelve  under 
protection.  Bright  could  fairly  contend  that,  if  the  Ten 
Hours  Act  had  preceded  instead  of  following  the  repeal 
of  the  Corn  Law,  it  would  have  aggravated  the  distress 
of  the  manufacturing  towns. 

The  same  principle  led  Bright,  a  few  years  later,  to 
throw  cold  water  over  Sir  C.  Forster's  Bill  to  strengthen 
the  Truck  Act,  which  was  said  to  be  evaded  in  the  Mid- 
lands, although  in  Lancashire,  as  Bright  said,  the  truck 
system  did  not  exist.  ''  Under  the  present  conditions 
of  labour  in  the  country,  there  can  be  no  permanent, 
continuous,  and  irritating  tyranny  such  as  has  been 
described  by  the  promoters  of  the  Bill,  which  the  work- 
ing classes  are  not  perfectly  well  able  to  correct  without 

^  The  exportation  of  cotton  goods  quadrupled  itself  within  thirty  years  of 
the  Repeal. 


36  John  Bright. 

coming"  to  the  House  of  Commons  for  a  new  measure." 
Finally,  in  1855,  he  successfully  resisted  an  attempt  of 
J.  M.  Cobbett  to  improve  the  Factory  Act.  ''Whenever  I 
meet  my  constituents,  I  have  always  said  that  I  disapprove 
of  such  legislation  as  extremely  perilous,  whatever  good 
it  may  do;  but  that,  since  the  question  has  been  settled 
by  a  judicious  compromise,  I  will  not  abet  in  any  way 
any  motion  to  disturb  the  settlement  of  1850;^  and  I 
have  always  found  that  answer  satisfactory  in  Lanca- 
shire. If  I  thought  the  elements  of  discord  were  again 
to  be  stirred  up,  I  should  myself  be  glad  to  leave  the 
country,  and  to  go  somewhere  else,  where  labour  and 
capital  are  allowed  to  fight  their  own  battle  on  their  own 
ground  without  legislative  interference." 

We  now  return  to  the  memorable  session  of  1846.  In 
destroying  the  unity  of  his  party  for  the  common  good. 
Peel  had  also  made  sacrifice  of  his  own  career.  He  did 
not  fail  to  understand  that  he  could  no  longer  remain, 
and  could  never  again  become,  Prime  Minister.  He 
would  not  accept  Cobden's  friendly  suggestion  that  he 
should  appeal  to  the  country  as  the  leader  of  a  Free- 
trade  party,  conceiving  that  he  could  not  properly  use 
tlie  prerogative  of  dissolution  to  decide  a  personal  ques- 
tion between  himself  and  the  Protectionists.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  the  other  Radicals,  like  Cobden,  would  have 
preferred  his  leadership  to  that  of  Russell.  But  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  that,  if  so  bold  an  attempt  to  ignore 
the  Whigs  and  reconstruct  parties  had  been  made,  it 
would  not  have  been  easily  defeated  by  Russell  and 
Palmerston.  Anyhow  the  opportunity,  such  as  it  was, 
was  missed.  On  the  day  that  the  Corn-law  Bill  passed 
the  Lords,  the  Ministry  was  defeated  on  an  Irish  bill. 
Peel  resigned,  and  Russell  became  Prime  Minister,  with 
Palmerston  as  Foreign  Secretary. 

1  Ashley's  Act  of  1850  settled  some  ambiguities,  but  made  no  substantial 
addition  to  Fielden's  Act. 


The  Radical  Reformers.  37 

The  opportunities  of  private  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  were  more  abundant  in  those  days  of  scanty 
legislation  than  now;  and  the  speeches  made  by  Bright 
in  Parliament  in  the  eight  years  between  the  repeal  of 
the  Corn  Law  and  the  Crimean  war  cover  the  whole 
field  of  his  political  aims.  He  cannot  at  this  time  be 
regarded  as  the  leader,  or  even  as  a  member,  of  any 
organized  party  or  group.  Many  of  the  old  Free- 
traders immediately  took  their  place  in  the  Liberal 
phalanx,  and  gave  no  countenance  to  the  Radicalism  of 
Bright  and  Cobden.  Amongst  those  who  commonly 
voted  with  them  were  Joseph  Hume,  member  for  Mont- 
rose, a  Radical  of  long  parliamentary  experience,  the 
champion  of  retrenchment  and  economy,  and  the  most 
formidable  and  useful  of  parliamentary  bores ;  Ricardo, 
member  for  Stoke,  a  nephew  of  the  great  economist,  and 
himself  known  as  the  reformer  who  applied  free-trade 
principles  to  the  Navigation  Laws;  Sir  William  Moles- 
worth,  member  for  Southwark,  a  chief  advocate  of  colo- 
nial Home  Rule;  and,  after  1852,  Edward  Mlall,  member 
for  Rochdale,  the  general  of  the  militant  Nonconfor- 
mists. 

Molesworth  may  be  taken  as  the  connecting  link  be- 
tween the  Manchester  School  and  the  old  Philosophical 
Radicals  of  the  school  of  Bentham,  Grote,  and  James 
Mill.  There  is  an  obvious  gap  in  the  sympathy  between 
Bright — the  old-fashioned  Puritan,  the  emotional  orator, 
full  of  a  strong  faith  in  his  own  intuitions,  and  appealing 
to  sentiment,  compassion,  and  the  New  Testament — 
and  the  Utilitarians,  with  their  arid  philosophy,  their  odd 
presumption  of  a  quantitative  measure  of  happiness, 
their  supercilious  disdain  of  national  habit,  their  ungodly 
hardness,  and  their  dusty  logic.  But  he  and  they  were 
united  in  the  pursuit  of  many  political  ends;  and  Bright, 
with  his  incomparable  gift  of  popular  advocacy  and  his 
contagious  sensibility  to  injustice,  accomplished  feats  of 


38  John  Bright. 

persuasion  to  achieve  which  essays  had  been  written  and 
syllogisms  constructed  in  vain. 

Brig-ht  derived  from  the  philosophers  his  belief  in  the 
immutability  of  political  economy,  and  his  very  wide 
faith  in  the  doctrine  of  laisser  /aire  et  laisser  passer. 
Indeed  his  devotion  to  these  articles  of  faith  was  more 
rigidly  orthodox  than  that  of  one  who  stood  nearer  than 
he  to  the  true  apostolical  succession  of  the  Benthamites, 
John  Stuart  Mill.  Mill  deliberately  excepted  the  regula- 
tion of  the  hours  of  labour  and  the  provision  of  education 
by  the  State  from  the  general  doctrine  of  laisser  faired- 
Bright,  as  we  have  seen,  set  up  the  principle  of  non- 
interference against  the  Ten  Hours  Bill ;  and  he  was 
also  an  enemy  of  any  possible  scheme  of  national  educa- 
tion. 

In  April,  1847,  Russell  proposed  an  increase  in  the 
grant  for  elementary  education.  The  prevalent  opinion 
of  Nonconformists  was  then  entirely  opposed  to  all 
grants  from  the  Treasury  to  the  schools,  which  were 
mostly  under  clerical  control.  It  has  already  been  re- 
marked that  Bright  was  above  all  things  an  enthusiast 
of  religious  equality.  **  I  am  a  Nonconformist,"  he  said, 
**  being  by  birth,  education,  observation,  and  conviction 
fully  established  in  the  opinion  I  hold."  His  hostility  to 
the  establishment  of  religion  was  associated  in  his  mind 
with  his  repugnance  to  other  sorts  of  privilege.  The 
clergy  were  in  his  view  a  privileged  class;  and  therefore, 
by  reason  of  the  natural  tendency  of  persons  so  favoured 
to  support  not  only  their  own  but  one  another's  privi- 
leges, the  Church,  as  he  thought,  had  been  "uniformly 
hostile  to  the  progress  of  public  liberty",  and  "opposed 
to  those  opinions  and  those  changes  which  most  men 
believed  to  be  necessary".  To  this  topic  he  frequently 
recurred.  He  never  forgot  that  when  the  people  were 
starving,  when  children  were  fighting  for  crusts  of  bread 

1  Political  Economy,  book  v.  chap.  xi. 


The  Radical  Reformers.  39 

picked  out  of  the  gutter,  when  women  were  pawning 
their  wedding-rings  to  buy  food,  and  when  the  dissenting 
ministers  of  England  turned  out  wherever  the  trumpet 
of  the  League  was  blown,  the  clergy  of  the  privileged 
church  were  either  indifferent  or  had  joined  the  defenders 
of  the  pitiless  monopoly. 

Bright  admitted  that  many  Nonconformists  had  been 
in  favour  of  the  interference  of  the  government  in  1839. 
**  At  that  time  the  Dissenters  regarded  the  institution  of 
a  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  as  a  step  leading  away 
from  that  power  which  the  Church  of  England  wished 
to  usurp,  of  educating  the  whole  people.  But  from  1839 
to  this  year  we  have  found  no  step  taken  by  the  govern- 
ment which  has  not  had  for  its  tendency  the  aggrandise- 
ment of  the  Established  Church."  ^ 

Bright's  speech,  again  delivered  in  reply  to  Macaulay, 
defended  the  old  system,  described  by  his  antagonist  as 
an  experiment  tried  without  success  ever  since  the  Hept- 
archy, by  which  elementary  education  had  been  left  to 
voluntary  enterprise  and  voluntary  benevolence,  without 
recourse  to  the  funds  or  submission  to  the  control  of  the 
State.  Many  years  have  elapsed  since  this  view  became 
obsolete;  but  Bright's  speeches  in  its  favour  are  still  in 
a  high  degree  interesting,  for  his  opinion  was  not  isolated 
or  wilful,  but  intimately  connected  with  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  policy  which  he  never  abandoned.  The  follow- 
ing passage,  for  example,  is  of  the  first  importance: 
*'  If  there  is  any  principle  more  certain  than  another,  I 
suppose  it  is  that  what  a  people  is  able  to  do  for  itself 
the  Government  should  not  attempt  to  do  for  it.  For 
nothing  tends  so  much  to  strengthen  a  people,  to  make 
them  powerful,  great,  and  good,  as  the  constant  exercise 

1  It  must  be  remembered  that  there  was  then  no  Conscience  Clause. 
Bright  was  one  of  a  very  small  minority  that  supported  in  1847  an  amend- 
ment to  admit  children  to  all  state-aided  schools  without  compelling  them 
to  share  in  the  religious  instruction. 


40  John  Bright. 

of  all  their  faculties  on  public  objects,  and  the  carrying 
out  of  public  works  and  objects  by  voluntary  contribu- 
tions among  themselves." 

We  seem  to  have  travelled  a  vast  distance  from  this 
position  now;  and  the  classes  for  which  Bright  won  a 
commanding  share  in  the  determination  of  national 
policy,  have  been  encouraged  to  larger  and  larger  expec- 
tations of  what  the  State  can  do  and  ought  to  do  for 
them.  We  may  still  hear  the  echoes  of  Bright's  robust 
individualism  in  the  candour  of  private  conversation,  but 
from  political  platforms  it  is  banished  for  ever. 

At  the  general  election  of  1847  Bright  was  appro- 
priately rewarded  for  his  services  to  Free-trade  by  an 
unopposed  return  for  Manchester,  the  headquarters  of 
the  League.  His  colleague,  Milner  Gibson,  was  a  man 
of  Radical  sympathies,  though  a  member  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

Immediately  after  the  election  he  turned  his  attention 
to  the  second  great  enterprise  of  his  career,  parliamen- 
tary reform.  That  enterprise  was  destined  to  occupy 
twenty  years  of  his  life.  For  ten  years  he  and  his  friends 
called  for  reform  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  from 
time  to  time  exacted  futile  promises  from  Ministers. 
For  ten  years  more,  reviving  the  methods  of  the  League, 
he  conducted  the  agitation  in  the  country  which  at  last 
produced  the  Reform  Act  of  1867.  Although  the  Leaguers 
had  resisted  the  desire  of  the  Chartists  to  give  priority 
to  parliamentary  reform  over  Free -trade,  their  work 
and  its  difficulties  had  made  them  sensible  of  the  imper- 
fection of  the  representative  system.  They  believed 
that  public  opinion  had  always  preponderated  against 
the  Corn  Law,  and  that  it  could  not  have  survived  the 
first  reformed  parliament,  if  the  Reform  of  1832  had  been 
sufficient  to  restore  to  the  people  that  control  over  the 
Lower  House  of  which  the  aristocracy  had  deprived 
them.     No  one  could  tell  how  long  the  House  of  Com- 


The  Radical  Reformers.  41 

mons  might  have  resisted  public  opinion  if  the  reasoning- 
of  the  platforms  had  not  been  reinforced  by  the  irresis- 
tible argument  of  the  famine,  or  if  that  crisis  had  not 
found  at  the  head  of  the  Conservative  party  a  statesman 
who  had  hereditary  sympathies  with  the  manufacturers 
as  well  as  the  squires. 

On  April  27,  1848,  the  movement  was  inaugurated  at 
Newall's  Buildings,  Manchester,  the  office  of  the  League, 
by  Bright  and  Cobden.  Two  months  later  Hume  moved 
a  resolution  in  the  House  in  favour  of  household  suffrage, 
the  ballot,  triennial  parliaments,  and  a  more  equal 
apportionment  of  voters  to  seats.  This  scheme  went  a 
long  way  in  the  direction  of  the  People's  Charter,  and 
considerably  further  than  the  Reform  of  1867.  In  this 
debate  Hume  once  more  enunciated  the  famous  Radical 
watchword  that  **  taxation  and  representation  should  go 
together";  and  DisTaeli  declared  that  *'the  franchise 
was  not  a  right,  nor  a  trust,  but  a  privilege,  created  by 
law,  and  conferred,  not  as  an  odious  exception,  but  as 
a  general  reward  ".  Bright,  who  had  made  an  earlier 
opportunity  of  declaring  his  belief  that  ''the  constitu- 
tion would  be  strengthened  by  admitting  a  large  number 
of  people  to  participate  in  its  privileges  ",  took  no  part 
in  this  debate,  but  voted,  with  Villiers,  Molesworth, 
Cobden,  and  Gibson,  in  the  minority  of  84.  Next  year, 
in  speaking  to  Hume's  motion,  he  propounded  his  con- 
stitutional theory  of  reform.  "  My  hon.  friend  merely 
proposes  that  you  should  adopt  in  practice  that  which 
no  one  will  deny  is  recognized  by  the  theory  of  the  con- 
stitution. We  have  monarchical  institutions,  in  which 
we  have  found  no  fault.  We  have  a  House  of  Peers, 
which  is  another  recognized  portion  of  our  constitutional 
system.  That  also  has  its  privileges  and  prerogatives, 
and  we  find  no  fault  in  them.  But  we  maintain  that  the 
constitution  recognizes  another  element, — a  popular,  or, 
if  you  choose,  a  democratic  element ;  and  we  who  stand 


42  Jonn  Bright. 

here,  and  those  we  represent,  the  common  people  of 
Engfland,  have  as  great  and  undoubted  a  right  to  be  sole 
and  absolute  in  this  House  as  the  monarch  on  the  throne, 
or  the  peers  in  the  other  chamber  of  the  legislature.  But 
the  system  under  which  we  sit  in  this  House  is  by  no 
means  in  accord  with  the  theory  of  the  constitution." 
The  system,  he  said,  excluded  five-sixths  of  the  grown 
men  of  the  nation;  while  the  representation  of  the 
middle-classes  was  a  mere  pretence  so  long  as  so  many 
boroughs  were  in  the  gift  of  the  great  land-owners.  He 
warned  the  House  that  the  natural  result  of  the  disap- 
pointment of  the  working-classes  had  been  *'  that  fright- 
ful thing  which  men  call  Chartism, — frightful  not  in  its 
demand,  but  because  in  its  discussions  passions  had  been 
stirred  up,  false  principles  enunciated,  and  mischievous 
animosities  engendered  ".  Bright  was  an  enemy  of  tur- 
bulence; but  he  had  learned  the  first  lesson  of  political 
wisdom, — to  seek  for  the  remediable  causes  of  popular 
discontents,  not  in  the  vice  of  the  inultitude,  but  in  the 
errors  of  the  government. 

The  demand  for  parliamentary  reform  was  associated 
in  the  minds  of  the  reformers,  and  on  the  banners 
exhibited  at  popular  demonstrations,  with  the  cry  for 
retrenchment.  Cobden  believed  that  expense,  and  in 
particular  military  expense,  could  be  curtailed  only  by 
"giving  the  people  a  voice  in  the  government".  In 
1849  he  proposed,  with  the  support  of  Bright  and  Hume, 
to  reduce  the  national  expenditure  ''to  the  sum  which 
within  the  last  fourteen  years  has  been  found  to  be 
sufficient  ",  that  is  to  say,  from  fifty-four  to  forty-four 
and  a  half  millions.  The  people  have  since  obtained 
their  voice  in  the  government;  and  the  expenditure  has 
grown  to  more  than  double  the  maximum  proposed  by 
Cobden. 

Bright's  speeches  on  finance  are  comparatively  unim- 
portant.    They  were  indeed  merely  auxiliary  to  those  of 


The  Radical  Reformers.  43 

Cobden  and  Hume,  who  could  handle  statistics  and 
calculations  with  greater  dexterity.  He  called  for  an 
extension  of  the  death  duties  to  real  as  well  as  personal 
property.  The  Conservative  county  members  retorted 
by  asking"  that  real  property  should  be  relieved  of  its 
excessive  share  in  local  taxation.  Bright  could  not 
tolerate  the  clamour  of  the  land-owners  for  relief  to  the 
agricultural  interest,  and  compared  them  to  the  strolling* 
players  who  announced  a  performance  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poor,  being*  themselves,  as  it  afterwards  appeared, 
the  poor  intended  by  the  advertisement.  The  Radical 
plan  for  the  relief  of  the  farmers  was  to  repeal  the  duty 
on  malt  and  hops,  and  to  meet  the  deficiency  by  a  corre- 
sponding* reduction  of  expense.  The  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  was  obliged  to  refuse  all  these  appeals. 

Both  at  this  time  and  for  many  years  afterwards 
Bright  protested  frequently  and  with  insistence  agfainst 
what  seemed  to  him  extravagant  expenditure  on  national 
defence.  These  protests  were  inspired  partly  by  his 
hatred  of  war,  partly  by  his  general  belief  that  the 
commercial  prosperity  of  the  country  suffered  by  exces- 
sive taxation,  and,  not  least,  by  his  distrust  of  an  aristo- 
cratic service.  He  was  not  convinced  by  the  proverb 
that  bids  us  make  ready  for  war  if  we  desire  peace ;  and 
indeed  those  who  dispute  that  time-honoured  saw  need 
not  be  at  a  loss  for  apt  historical  instances.  He  happily 
illustrated  the  fallacy  which  lurks  in  the  popular  belief 
that  large  expenditure,  on  muniments  of  war  for  in- 
stance, is  good  for  trade,  by  the  parable  of  the  dog  fed 
on  its  own  tail.  As  for  the  third  reason,  he  said  now, 
**the  cry  raised  with  respect  to  the  defenceless  state  of 
the  country  has  its  origin  entirely  in  the  wishes  of  a 
party  connected  with  the  military  department  to  increase 
our  expenditure ".  Ten  years  later  he  embodied  this 
suspicion  in  the  most  brilliant  and  memorable  of  his 
sayings.     *'The  more  you  examine  the  matter,  the  more 


44  John   Bright. 

you  will  come  to  the  conclusion  that  this  foreigfn  policy, 
this  regard  for  the  liberties  of  Europe,  this  care  for  the 
Protestant  interest,  this  excessive  love  for  the  balance 
of  power,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  gfig-antic 
system  of  outdoor  relief  for  the  aristocracy  of  Great 
Britain." 

During  the  session  of  1848  Bright  made  his  first 
attempt  at  legislation.  The  severity  of  the  Game-laws 
had  occupied  the  attention  of  eminent  Whigs,  when  that 
party  was  in  opposition  and  had  a  keen  eye  for  griev- 
ances. Fox  had  denounced  the  Game -law  as  a  law 
that  engendered  crime,  and  Sydney  Smith  had  ridiculed 
and  condemned  it  in  the  early  numbers  of  the  Edinhurgh 
Review.  In  1845  Bright  had  obtained  a  committee  of 
the  House  to  inquire  into  the  grievance.  He  had  col- 
lected information  at  considerable  expense  to  himself, 
had  called  twenty-one  tenant  farmers  to  lay  their  com- 
plaints before  the  committee,  and  had  published  the 
evidence  with  a  preface  of  his  own.  The  Bill  he  now 
introduced,  relying  rather  upon  the  evidence,  and  upon 
his  own  conclusions  therefrom,  than  upon  the  cautious 
and  moderate  report  of  the  committee,  was  simple  and 
complete.  He  called  it  a  Bill  for  Repealing  the  Laws 
with  respect  to  Game,  and  scheduled  all  the  Acts  with- 
out exception.  The  committee  had  reported  that  the 
common  law  of  England  had  always  distinctly  recognized 
a  qualified  right  of  property  in  game ;  and  the  efi'ect  of 
Bright's  Bill  would  have  been  to  leave  game  protected 
only  by  the  common -law  rights  of  the  land-owner  in 
respect  of  the  game  on  his  land.^ 

Bright  stated  the  case  against  the   law  under  three 

^  The  following  example  of  the  common-law  rights  may  serve  to  amuse 
the  non-legal  mind: — "  If  A  starts  a  hare  in  the  ground  of  B,  and  hunts  it 
and  kills  it  there,  the  property  continues  all  the  while  in  B.  But  if  A  starts 
a  hare  in  the  ground  of  B,  and  hunts  it  into  the  ground  of  C,  and  kills  it 
there,  the  property  is  in  A,  the  hunter;  but  A  is  liable  to  an  action  of  tres- 
pass for  hunting  in  the  grounds  of  B  and  of  C. " 


The  Radical  Reformers.  45 

heads  of  argument.  In  the  first  place,  he  urged  that  the 
preservation  of  game  prevented  agricultural  improve- 
ment and  that  increase  of  the  production  of  the  land 
which  was  required  by  the  increase  of  the  consuming 
population.  Fifty  or  sixty  years  earlier  the  tenant  had 
been  contented  with  the  spontaneous  produce  of  the 
land;  now  he  spent  money  to  increase  the  produce,  and 
really  paid  two  rents, — one,  the  rent  paid  to  the  land- 
lord, by  which  he  purchased  the  natural  produce;  the 
other,  the  interest  on  his  capital,  in  return  for  which  he 
was  entitled  to  the  artificial  increase.  The  land-owner 
still  reserved  the  right  of  stocking  the  land  with  game, 
and  of  thus  destroying  not  only  a  part  of  the  unassisted 
produce  of  the  land,  but  of  the  increase  obtained  by  the 
expenditure  of  the  tenant's  capital.  In  the  second  place, 
confidence  in  the  law  was  weakened  by  the  harsh  ad- 
ministration of  the  Game-laws  by  magistrates  personally 
interested  in  preservation.  The  Home  Office  had  found 
it  necessary  to  order  all  convictions  for  poaching  to  be 
reported,  and  had  released  many  persons  illegally  con- 
victed, and  commuted  many  illegally  severe  sentences. 
Thirdly,  the  law  encouraged  crime.  Graham,  the 
Peelite  Home  Secretary,  had  said:  *'The  most  frightful 
source  of  crime  in  my  neighbourhood  is  the  preservation 
of  game;  poaching  is  the  cause  rather  than  the  con- 
sequence of  criminal  habits ".  All  these  evils,  said 
Bright,  were  entailed  on  the  country  for  the  sake  of  the 
35,000  sportsmen  who  held  game  licenses. 

The  Bill  was  received  with  derision,  and  did  not  reach 
the  second  stage.  Bright  retained  his  opinion,  and 
nearly  twenty  years  later  wrote  to  a  farmer  that  he  saw 
no  good  in  any  changes  in  the  law.  ''  What  you  want 
is  the  repeal  of  all  laws  which  are  made  with  the  object 
of  favouring  preservation  of  game."  But  he  was  not 
satisfied  with  the  support  he  received  from  farmers,  and 
he  knew  by  experience  that  an  annual  motion  in  Parlia- 


46  John  Bright. 

ment  was  useless  unless  supported  by  strong  pressure 
from  the  country.  The  question  slept  for  many  years; 
and  nothing-  was  done  by  the  legislature  until  Sir  William 
Harcourt's  Ground  Game  Act  of  1880.  The  influence 
which  public  opinion  has  gradually  obtained  over  the 
conduct  of  county  magistrates  has  mitigated  what 
Bright  treated  with  reason  as  a  grievance  crying  for 
redress. 

At  this  period  of  his  life  Bright  spoke  almost  every 
year  in  support  of  an  annual  motion  for  the  repeal  of 
capital  punishment.  He  said,  "I  feel  more  strongly 
upon  this  question  than  upon  any  other  that  can  come 
before  the  House".  The  sentiment  that  prompted  this 
avowal  was  no  doubt  religious;  but  he  discussed  the 
question,  as  he  afterwards  discussed  the  question  of 
peace  and  war,  without  making  any  assumption  repug- 
nant to  those  who  did  not  share  his  solemn  regard  for 
the  inviolable  sanctity  of  human  life.  This  question 
seems,  now  that  the  institution  of  annual  motions  has 
perished,  to  have  passed  from  the  House  of  Commons 
into  the  keeping  of  debating  societies.  In  regard  to 
another  reform,  which  he  advocated  from  the  first,  and 
which  was  doubtless  connected  in  his  mind  with  this, — 
the  prohibition  of  flogging  in  the  army, — his  views  in 
process  of  time  have  prevailed. 

The  session  of  1851  was  remarkable  for  one  of  the 
least  creditable  performances  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  appointment  of  Roman  Catholic  bishops  with  terri- 
torial titles  had  excited  the  Protestantism  of  the  country, 
already  rendered  irritable  by  the  suspicion  of  romanizing 
influences  in  the  Oxford  Tractarians.  Russell,  who  in- 
herited from  his  Whig  ancestors  the  strong  anti-roman 
sentiments  that  originally  created  the  Whig  party,  and 
who  possibly  mistook  a  passing  ebullition  of  temper  for 
a  great  national  movement  likely  to  bring  credit  to  any 
man  who  should  put  himself  at  the  head  of  it,  thundered 


The  Radical  Reformers.  47 

against  the  Pope  and  the  Tractarians  in  his  famous 
Durham  letter,  and  introduced  the  futile  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Assumption  Bill.  Bright  was  one  of  the  small 
and  enviable  minority  that  opposed  the  introduction  of 
this  "little,  paltry,  miserable  measure",  and  predicted 
a  rapid  subsidence  of  the  indignation  that  made  it  for 
the  moment  popular.  "  I  shall  not  be  surprised  if  the 
noble  Lord  finds  himself  devoured  by  his  own  hounds." 
The  Bill  suggested  topics  irresistible  to  a  Liberationist. 
"  This  is  not  a  subject  for  a  parliament  to  discuss  at  all; 
and  we  are  discussing  it  in  consequence  of  the  errors  of 
our  forefathers."  No  sentence  could  be  quoted  more 
characteristic  of  Bright, — of  his  clear  vision  for  what 
was  near,  and  his  inadequate  perception  of  the  per- 
spective of  history.  If  Russell,  with  his  historical  con- 
sciousness of  the  spirit  of  the  Exclusionists,  failed  to 
understand  that  the  time  had  passed  when  any  effective 
demonstration  of  the  national  Protestantism  could  be 
made  by  Parliament,  Bright,  with  a  finer  sense  of  the 
modern  spirit,  saw  only  an  error  of  our  forefathers  in 
the  parliamentary  Protestantism  that  was  once  as  neces- 
sary to  the  salvation  of  England  as  the  tolerance  and 
equality  of  to-day. 

It  required  less  than  his  dexterity  In  debate  to  turn 
Russell's  complaint  of  the  "danger  within  the  gates 
from  the  unworthy  sons  of  the  Church  of  England " 
against  the  Establishment.  "The  noble  Lord  has  dis- 
covered that  the  great  institution  that  was  supposed  to 
be  the  bulwark  of  Protestantism  turns  out  to  be  a 
huge  manufactory  of  a  national  and  home-made  Popery." 
More  worthy  of  record  than  this  effective  taunt  is  the 
admirable  observation:  "It  is  a  common  saying  that 
truth  is  indestructible;  but  let  the  House  remember  that 
there  is  another  thing  that  is  indestructible,  and  that  is 
a  persecuted  error". 

Between  the  first  and  second  reading  of  the  Bill  the 


48  John  Bright. 

Radicals  defeated  the  Government  in  a  small  House  on 
a  motion  to  equalize  the  county  with  the  borough  fran- 
chise. Russell,  who  had  other  reasons  to  complain  of 
the  listlessness  of  his  supporters,  and  who  was  perhaps 
not  sorry  to  escape  from  his  Bill,  made  this  defeat  an 
excuse  for  resignation,  and  was  ridiculed  in  Punch  as 
the  little  boy  who  chalked  up  No  Poper)^  and  ran  away. 
The  Conservatives  declined  to  relieve  him  of  his  diffi- 
culties, and  his  Ministry  returned  to  office.  But  his 
Cabinet  was  not  very  loyal,  and  his  following  was  still 
far  from  enthusiastic.  The  life  of  a  Liberal  Government 
without  a  progressive  policy,  and  supported  by  little 
more  than  the  fear  of  protection,  could  not  be  very 
vigorous.  Within  twelve  months  there  was  another 
crisis. 

At  the  end  of  185 1  Palmerston  was  summarily  dis- 
missed as  a  punishment  for  committing  the  country  to 
approval  of  Louis  Napoleon's  execrable  coup  d'etat  of 
December  2,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Queen  and 
the  Prime  Minister.  In  taking,  or  in  assenting  to, 
this  course,  Russell  was  aware  that  **his  Government 
was  so  much  weakened  that  it  was  not  likely  to  retain 
power  for  any  long  time  ".  Palmerston's  ostentatious 
foreign  policy,  however  distasteful  to  Bright,  had  been 
the  only  part  of  the  conduct  of  the  Government  that 
had  touched  the  popular  sympathy.  In  a  few  weeks 
Palmerston  was  able  to  say,  **  I  have  had  my  tit-for-tat 
with  John  Russell  ".  That  no  circumstance  of  ignominy 
should  be  wanting,  the  weapon  with  which  he  defeated 
his  late  friends  was  an  amendment  to  omit  the  word 
Local  in  the  title  of  the  Local  Militia  Bill.  Lord  Derby 
became  Prime  Minister,  and  Disraeli  Leader  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 

The  Free-traders  could  not  see  without  dismay  the 
statesman  who  had  led  the  outcry  of  the  exasperated 
Protectionists  against  Peel  six  years  before,  sitting  as 


The  Radical  Reformers.  49 

the  Leader  of  the  House.  Preparations  were  made  to 
revive  the  activities  of  the  League.  Bright  joined  in 
the  demand  for  an  appeal  to  the  country,  at  which  the 
question  of  Protection  should  be  submitted  straightfor- 
wardly to  the  electorate.  Disraeli's  position  was  indeed 
awkward,  for  not  only  was  his  party  in  a  minority,  but 
many  of  the  Conservatives  who  sat  for  boroughs  had  by 
this  time  declared  for  free  trade  in  corn.  *' Your  diffi- 
culties", said  Bright,  **are  not  of  our  making.  They 
are  the  difficulties  of  an  impossible  policy;  and  that,  I 
tell  you,  is  a  difficulty  that  we  will  not  allow  you  to 
escape  from.  Either  you  shall  recant  your  protectionist 
principles,  or  you  shall  go  to  the  constituencies,  and  let 
them  decide  the  question  once  for  all  and  for  all  of  us. 
You  said  once  you  would  break  up  an  organized  hypoc- 
risy. I  say  to  you,  we  will  try  if  we  cannot  break  up 
a  confederated  imposture." 

In  the  summer  of  1852  the  appeal  was  made.  Bright 
stood  again  for  Manchester  as  a  supporter  of  ''com- 
mercial freedom,  parliamentary  reform,  and  religious 
liberty  ",  and  was  re-elected  by  a  satisfactory  majority. 
The  response  of  the  country  showed  that  the  Conserva- 
tives could  remain  in  office,  if  at  all,  only  by  renouncing 
protection.  Accepting  the  popular  verdict,  Disraeli 
finally  bade  farewell  to  protectionist  principles,  which 
thenceforward  were  reduced  to  the  rank  of  a  pious 
opinion  tolerated  in  private  members  of  his  party.  His 
palinode  did  not  save  him  from  defeat.  In  December 
he  was  beaten  in  committee  of  Ways  and  Means.  The 
new  Ministry  was  formed  by  a  coalition  of  the  two 
sections  of  the  Free-trade  party.  Of  the  Peelites,  Lord 
Aberdeen  became  Prime  Minister  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Of  the  old  Liberals, 
Russell  became  Foreign  Secretary  and  led  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  Palmerston  was  made  Home  Secre- 
tary. 

(M433)  D 


50  John  Bright. 

In  the  early  years  of  this  Parliament,  Bright  had 
occasion  to  speak  on  three  questions  which  to  his  mind 
were  settled  by  simple  deductions  from  the  general  pro- 
position that  the  State  ought  to  treat  all  religions  alike. 
The  Commons  passed  a  measure,  which  was  more  than 
once  rejected  by  the  Lords,  to  remove  the  disabilities 
that  prevented  Jews  from  sitting  in  Parliament.  The 
opposition  to  this  act  of  toleration.  Bright  said,  had 
been  based  on  a  sentiment  which  had  gradually  sunk 
down  to  a  mere  phrase, — that  the  Bill  would  ''unchris- 
tianize  the  House  of  Commons".  ''  What  can  be  more 
marvellous  than  that  any  sane  man  should  propose  that 
doctrinal  differences  in  religion  should  be  made  the  test 
of  citizenship  and  political  rights?  Doctrinal  differences 
in  religion  in  all  human  probability  will  last  for  many 
generations  to  come,  and  may  possibly  last  so  long  as 
man  shall  inhabit  the  globe;  but  if  you  permit  these 
differences  to  be  the  test  of  citizenship,  what  is  it  but  to 
admit  to  your  system  the  fatal  conclusion  that  social 
and  political  differences  in  all  nations  can  never  be 
eradicated  but  must  be  eternal?" 

In  1854  the  Dissenters  were  disappointed  by  the 
absence  of  any  provision  to  abolish  tests  in  the  Bills  for 
reforming  the  ancient  Universities.  Bright  vehemently 
reproached  the  Government  for  their  treatment  of  the 
just  claims  of  Nonconformists,  whose  support  indeed 
the  Whig  party  had  long  been  accustomed  to  purchase 
or  to  reward  by  the  stingiest  minimum  of  concessions. 
'*  Dissenters  are  always  expected  to  manifest  very  much 
of  the  qualities  which  are  spoken  of  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians, — '  to  hope  all  things,  to  believe  all  things, 
and  to  endure  all  things'."  He  had  before  called 
Palmerston  the  ''political  Mrs.  Jellaby "  by  reason  of 
the  contrast  between  his  sympathy,  often  indiscreetly 
exhibited,  with  the  Liberal  movement  abroad,  and  his 
neglect  of  Liberal  reforms  at  home.    In  the  same  strain, 


The  Radical  Reformers.  51 

he  now  taunted  Russell  with  leaving-  the  religious  in- 
equaUties  of  his  own  country  untouched,  whilst  **  under- 
taking- in  the  most  zealous  manner  possible  the  estab- 
lishment of  religious  equality  in  Turkey,  and  asking- 
the  Sultan  to  do  what  would  be  very  revolutionary  and 
horrible  if  broached  in  this  country  ". 

The  third  and  most  important  of  these  questions  was 
that  of  the  imposition  of  church-rates  on  Dissenters. 
Bright's  speeches  on  this  subject  were  frequent  and 
passionate,  so  passionate  indeed  that  they  were  perhaps 
more  likely  to  provoke  obstinacy  than  to  carry  convic- 
tion. They  are  full  of  incidents  of  oppression,  the  record 
of  which  it  would  be  cruel  to  revive.  Nor  is  it  necessary 
to  attempt  here  any  history  of  that  prolong-ed  resistance, 
so  fruitful  in  acrimony,  which  has  probably  very  few 
defenders  now.  The  following-  passage,  irresistibly 
sug-gestive  of  Noodle's  Oration,  is  quoted  from  Lord 
John  Russell's  speech  against  the  Church  Rates  Aboli- 
tion Bill  of  1854,  as  in  itself  sufficient  to  explain  Bright's 
refusal  to  recognize  him  as  a  leader  of  Liberalism,  and 
as  furnishing-  a  measure  of  the  change  that  came  over  the 
spirit  of  the  party  when  the  lump  was  at  last  leavened 
by  Bright's  inspiriting  ideas.  "We  have  a  national 
church,  we  have  a  national  aristocracy,  we  have  a 
hereditary  monarchy,  and  all  these  things  stand  to- 
gether. My  opinion  is  that  they  would  decay  and  fall 
together.  I  see  no  reason  why  we  should  prefer  to 
these  institutions  those  of  the  United  States  of  America; 
and  I  must  therefore  oppose  this  Bill  as  in  my  opinion 
tending  to  subvert  one  of  the  great  institutions  of  the 
State." 

Another  reform  to  which  the  Radicals  applied  them- 
selves with  great  energy  during  the  life  of  the  Coalition 
Government  was  the  repeal  of  what  they  called  taxes  on 
knowledge — the  taxes  that  made  newspapers  dear.  The 
cost  of  the  stamp  affixed  to  every  copy  of  a  newspaper 


52  John  Bright. 

had  been  reduced  in  1836  from  46?.  to  id.  There  were 
also  a  tax  on  advertisements  and  an  excise  duty  on 
paper.  The  effect  of  these  imposts  was,  in  brief,  that 
while  the  New  York  Herald  vj^ls  sold  for  id.,  and  the 
Melbourne  Argtis  for  i}^</.,  a  paper  of  the  same  size  in 
England  cost  5^. ;  that  even  the  largest  provincial  towns 
had  only  weekly  papers;  that  in  seventy-five  parliamen- 
tary boroug-hs  no  newspaper  whatever  was  published; 
and  that  attempts  were  constantly  made  to  evade  the 
law. 

Some  of  the  old  Chartists  had  formed  a  committee  for 
promoting  the  repeal  of  these  duties.  In  the  House  of 
Commons  Milner  Gibson  took  the  lead  in  pressing  for 
this  reform,  and  Bright  gave  effective  support  to  his 
colleague.  ''Here",  he  exclaimed,  holding  up  a  copy 
of  the  Potteries  Free  Press,  *'is  an  unfortunate  pape 
which  was  strangled  out  of  its  little  innocent  life  in  th 
most  remorseless  manner."  The  expectation  already 
entertained,  though  destined  to  a  long  procrastination, 
that  the  working-classes  would  soon  be  admitted  to  the 
franchise,  supplied  the  strongest  argument  for  cheapen- 
ing the  means  of  popular  information  on  current  events. 
There  were  many  w^ho  feared  that  cheap  papers  would 
pander  to  this  or  that  evil  passion  of  the  multitude. 
But  in  Mr.  Gladstone,  who,  thoug-h  not  yet  accepting 
the  name  of  Liberal,  was  already  in  many  respects  more 
sympathetic  with  the  reformers  than  the  Liberal  leaders, 
Gibson  and  Bright  found  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
easily  convinced  of  the  value  of  this  reform.  The  revenue 
stamp  disappeared  from  newspapers  in  1855;  and  many 
of  the  great  daily  newspapers  of  the  provinces  date  from 
that  era.  It  was  not  till  six  years  later,  and  until  after 
a  struggle  between  the  Commons  and  the  Lords,  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  able  to  abolish  the  paper  duty,  and 
so  to  call  into  existence  a  multitude  of  penny  papers. 
There  was  none  of  the  many  reforms  in  which  he  had 


The  V/ar  with  Russia.  53 

had  a  hand  to  which  Bright  referred  more  frequently 
and  with  more  satisfaction  than  to  this,  in  the  historical 
reminiscences  which  formed  the  substance  of  his  speeches 
in  his  old  age. 


Chapter  III. 
The  War  with  Russia. 

We  have  now  reached  a  period  in  Bright's  career 
which  furnishes  the  most  crucial  tests  of  his  public 
character.  A  politician  acting  with  a  party  shares  with 
others,  in  a  degree  varying  inversely  with  his  eminence, 
the  credit  or  discredit  of  his  acts  and  words.  When  he 
stands  alone,  he  invites  an  absolute  verdict  for  or  against 
himself. 

Bright's  five  great  speeches  on  the  war  with  Russia 
are  the  summit  of  his  achievements  as  a  parliamentary 
orator.  On  the  ultimate  acceptance  of  the  principles 
of  public  action,  which  he  advocated  without  success 
at  that  crisis,  he  staked  and  saved  his  reputation  for 
political  sagacity.  Long  before  it  was  possible  to  dis- 
cern the  symptoms  of  that  change  in  the  habit  of  public 
opinion  which  he  predicted  so  confidently,  as  early, 
indeed,  as  the  first  subsidence  of  the  popular  passion 
which  had  overwhelmed  him,  he  already  began  to  enjoy 
the  reward  of  his  courage  and  fidelity.  He  could  no 
longer  be  classed  among  the  demagogues  the  breath  of 
whose  nostrils  is  the  applause  of  the  populace.  Cleon 
had  exhibited  the  virtues  of  Cato.  From  this  time  for- 
ward, though  his  opinions  were  often  distasteful,  and 
his  advocacy  of  them  irritating,  to  great  sections  of  his 
countrymen,  he  was  exempt  from  the  reproach  of  insin- 
cerity and  time-serving. 

With  the  Russian  speeches  should  be  read  the  lumin- 


54  John  Bright. 

ous  and  energ-etic  letter  to  Absalom  Watkin.^  The 
following  outline  of  the  transactions  which  led  to  the 
war  is  intended  merely  to  supply  what  is  necessary  to 
make  the  letter  and  the  speeches  intellig-ible. 

Three  men  stand  at  the  bar  of  history  charged  with 
the  g"uilt  of  this  g^reat  crime  against  humanity.  His- 
torians will  doubtless  never  ag^ree  upon  the  distribution 
of  blame  between  the  fanatical  zeal  of  Nicholas,  the 
ambition  of  Louis  Napoleon,  and  the  obstinacy  of  Lord 
Stratford  de  Redcliife.  Those  who  acquit  the  great 
ambassador,  who  is  at  least  entitled  to  the  praise  of  a 
definite  purpose  and  an  unbroken  consistency,  must  join 
in  Bright's  condemnation  of  the  ''incapable  and  g^uilty 
administration  " — the  ministers  who  weakly  surrendered 
the  reins,  at  one  time  to  their  servant,  at  another  to 
their  ally. 

In  the  year  1851  the  French  Government  made  certain 
claims  upon  the  Sublime  Porte  in  respect  of  the  localities 
in  the  Holy  Land  which  have  been  for  many  centuries 
the  resort  of  Christian  pilg-rims.  This  demand  was 
based  upon  a  treaty  of  1740,  in  which  the  Porte  had 
recog"nized  France  as  the  gfuardian  of  the  right  of  the 
Western  Church  to  access  to  the  holy  places.  The  claim 
of  France  was  reluctantly  conceded  by  the  Sultan,  and 
in  December,  1852,  the  key  of  the  Church  of  the  Nativity 
at  Bethlehem  was  entrusted  to  Latin  monks,  and  a  silver 
star  bearing  the  French  arms  was  solemnly  installed  in 
the  sanctuary.  The  success  of  this  pious  enterprise  of 
the  disciples  of  Voltaire  aroused  the  jealousy  of  the 
Tsar;  it  was  a  diplomatic  victory  of  the  Latin  over  the 
Greek  Church,  and  of  the  Greek  Church  the  Tsar  was 
the  acknowledged  head  and  protector.      Russian  troops 

^  One  of  the  minor  results  of  the  democratic  reform  of  1867  is  that  the 
art  of  pohtical  pamphleteering  has  lost  much  of  its  importance.  To  be  suc- 
cessful, political  literature  must  now  be  brief,  and  may  be  shallow.  It  is 
possible  that  the  letter  to  Watkin  will  take  rank  as  the  last  classical  speci- 
men of  the  lost  art  of  Halifax  and  Burke. 


The  War  with  Russia.  55 

were  ordered  to  the  south-western  frontier.  The  French 
retorted  by  sending  a  fleet  into  the  Levant.  A  still  more 
threatening  development  of  the  quarrel  now  occurred. 
The  Tsar  despatched  Prince  Menschikoff  to  Constanti- 
nople to  require  a  recognition  of  the  protectorate  of  the 
Tsar  over  the  Greek  Christians  in  Turkey. 

The  mission  of  Menschikoff  aroused  in  Britain  the 
ever-present  fear  of  Russian  aggression.  In  February, 
1853,  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  formerly  Sir  Stratford 
Canning,  an  old  antagonist  of  the  Tsar  in  the  diplomacy 
of  the  Eastern  Question,  was  sent  as  ambassador  to 
Constantinople,  with  instructions  to  watch  for  any  inter- 
ference with  the  integrity  and  independence  of  the  Otto- 
man empire.  The  British  envoy  inspired  the  Turk  to 
a  strenuous  resistance  to  the  Russian  claims.  After  a 
struggle  of  nearly  three  months  between  the  two  diplo- 
matists, Menschikoff  finally  invited  the  signature  of  the 
Sultan  to  an  instrument  formally  acknowledging  the 
Russian  protectorate.  This  document,  which  became 
famous  as  Menschikoff  s  Note,  was  presented  on  May  20 
as  an  ultimatum.  It  was  rejected,  and  Menschikoff 
immediately  quitted  Constantinople.  Lord  Stratford 
had  advised  the  rejection  of  the  note  with  the  full  con- 
currence of  the  ambassadors  of  France,  Austria,  and 
Prussia.  The  Porte  being  admittedly  unable  to  resist 
Russia  unaided,  it  is  certain  that  by  instigating  the 
refusal  of  the  Russian  demand,  the  British  ambassador 
committed  his  country  to  the  duty  of  supporting  the 
Turk  against  Russian  coercion. 

On  May  31  a  formal  demand  for  the  acceptance  of 
the  note  was  sent  by  the  Tsar's  minister,  Count  Nessel- 
rode,  to  Constantinople,  with  a  threat  that  the  Russian 
troops — which  were  already  massed  in  great  force  on  the 
frontier — would,  if  the  Turk  failed  to  comply,  occupy 
the  Danubian  provinces  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  that  is, 
the  principalities  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  which  now 


56  John  Bright. 

form  the  Kingdom  of  Roumania.  At  the  time  when  this 
menace  was  sent,  the  Tsar  had  reason  to  believe  from 
the  tone  of  the  messages  he  received  from  the  British 
Foreign  Office  that  Lord  Aberdeen's  ministry  was  not 
minded  to  support  with  vigour  the  firm  attitude  assumed 
by  Lord  Stratford  at  Constantinople.  On  July  2  the 
Russian  army  crossed  the  Pruth,  and  the  Tsar  issued  a 
proclamation  disclaiming  the  intention  of  conquest,  and 
promising  that  warlike  operations  should  cease  as  soon 
as  the  Porte  should  bring  itself  to  observe  the  inviola- 
bility of  the  Orthodox  Church. 

The  concert  of  the  four  Powers  was  still  unbroken. 
On  Augu^-t  12  Lord  Aberdeen,  the  prime  minister,  and 
Lord  Clarendon,  the  foreign  minister,  assured  the  House 
of  Lords  that  Austria,  Britain,  Prussia,  and  France 
were  ''acting  cordially  together  in  order  to  check  designs 
which  they  considered  inconsistent  with  the  balance  of 
power".  But  at  this  juncture  the  British  Government  en- 
tered into  what  the  historian  of  the  war  calls  "the  fatal 
transaction  which  substituted  a  cruel  war  for  the  peace- 
ful but  irresistible  pressure  which  was  exerted  by  the 
four  Powers  ".  A  compact  was  made  with  the  French 
emperor  by  which,  as  the  event  proved,  Britain  and 
France  were  mutually  pledged  to  execute  the  common 
judgment  of  the  Powers  without  waiting  for  the  co-opera- 
tion of  Austria  and  Prussia,  although  it  was  Austria 
rather  than  France  or  Britain  that  had  occasion  to 
resent  the  invasion  of  the  Danubian  provinces,  and  that 
was  best  able  to  offer  protection  to  the  Turk  in  this 
portion  of  his  dominions.  The  Queen's  Speech  at  the 
close  of  the  session  of  1853  contained  the  significant 
announcement  that  she  had  united  her  endeavours  in  the 
cause  of  peace  with  those  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French. 

Notwithstanding  this  division  of  the  concert,  a  confer- 
ence of  representatives  of  the  four  Powers  had  already 
assembled  at  Vienna.    The  result  of  this  conference  was 


The  W^ar  with  Russia.  57 

the  celebrated  Vienna  Note.  This  note  was  in  the  form 
of  an  undertaking  to  be  addressed  by  the  Sultan  to  the 
Tsar,  and  was  unanimously  recommended  to  the  two 
disputants  by  the  four  Powers.  The  Tsar  at  once 
accepted  it  as  satisfactory.  Unhappily  it  did  not  recom- 
mend itself  to  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe.  He  was 
instructed  to  urge  the  Sultan  to  accept  it;  but,  whilst 
obeying-  his  instructions,  he  indicated  his  disapproval  by 
a  demeanour  and  an  expression  of  countenance  that 
were  more  eloquent  than  the  language  in  which  he  deliv- 
ered the  message  of  his  Queen.  The  Sultan  refused  to 
sign  the  note  without  certain  specified  modifications. 
These  amendments  were  rejected  by  the  Tsar,  who  also 
withdrew  a  consent  that  was  naturally  conditional  on  the 
acquiescence  of  the  Sultan.  Immediately  on  this  refusal 
the  Sultan  declared  war,  although  he  was  still  unfortified 
by  assurances  of  support  from  any  of  the  Powers,  and 
even  without  such  reason  to  expect  that  support  as  he 
would  have  had  if  his  rejection  of  Menschikoff's  ultima- 
tum had  been  treated  by  Russia  as  a  casus  belli. 

The  defence  offered  by  the  supporters  of  the  policy  of 
war  for  this  fatal  obstinacy  of  the  Turk,  and  for  the 
support  given  to  that  obstinacy  by  Britain  and  France, 
is  that  Russia,  when  accepting  the  note,  and  the  Turk, 
when  rejecting  it,  agreed  in  putting  a  construction  upon 
it  which  had  not  been  in  the  minds  of  the  representatives 
of  the  Powers  when  they  composed  it.  It  was  alleged 
that,  according  to  the  interpretation  of  Russia  and  the 
Porte,  the  Vienna  Note,  which  the  Powers  invited  the 
Turk  to  accept,  was  virtually  identical  with  Menschi- 
koff's Note,  which  they  had  advised  him  to  reject,  but 
that  the  Conference  had  intended  to  save  the  honour 
of  the  Sultan  by  a  substantial  modification  of  Menschi- 
koff"'s  terms.  The  justification  of  the  policy  of  war  rests 
with  its  full  weight  upon  this  allegation.  If  it  is  true, 
the  Ministry  finds  its  excuse  at  the  expense  of  attributing 


58  John  Bright. 

to  the  chosen  diplomatists  of  four  great  nations  in- 
competence to  compose  a  state  paper  in  unambiguous 
language.  But  it  is  not  true;  and  by  triumphantly 
proving  it  to  be  false  Bright  shattered  the  formal  justifi- 
cation of  the  war.  The  formal  justification,  however,  of 
this  war,  as  of  others,  had  but  a  very  remote  relation  to 
the  real  causes.  These  diplomatic  inconsistencies  en- 
abled Bright  to  score  a  point  in  debate  against  his  enemy 
Palmerston,  but  such  a  victory  provided  no  remedy  for 
the  suspicious  jealousy  and  fidgety  sensitiveness  which 
Palmerston  had  educated  the  nation  to  regard  as  ele- 
ments of  patriotism. 

On  October  22  the  British  and  French  fleets  entered 
the  Dardanelles,  and  a  few  days  later,  taking  advantage 
of  the  declaration  of  war,  cast  anchor  in  the  Bosporus, 
from  which  in  time  of  peace  they  were  excluded  by  treaty. 
The  Tsar  was  not  slow  to  retaliate,  and  unhappily  struck 
his  blow  in  such  a  way  as  to  aggravate  the  enmity  of 
Britain.  On  November  30  a  Turkish  flotilla  lying  in 
the  harbour  of  Sinope  was  annihilated  by  six  Russian 
warships.  The  news  of  this  disaster  raised  the  war 
fever  of  the  British  to  a  degree  that  called  for  the  eftusion 
of  blood.  The  destruction  of  ships  of  our  ally  at  a  place 
barely  three  hundred  miles  distant  from  the  anchorage 
of  the  British  fleet  was  regarded  as  a  provocation  to 
Britain,  and  an  insolent  defiance  of  the  naval  supremacy 
in  which  every  patriotic  Briton  takes  pride.  The 
popular  indignation  expelled  whatever  disposition  to 
conciliation  still  remained  in  the  mind  of  the  Cabinet. 
They  were,  however,  at  first  content  with  ordering  the 
fleet  to  enter  the  Euxine.  Lord  Palmerston  thought 
that  the  crisis  required  more  strenuous  action,  and  re- 
signed office. 

This  was  the  first  of  that  long  series  of  resigna- 
tions which  demonstrated  so  painfully  the  defects  of  the 
British  parliamentary  system  in  the  presence  of  dangers 


The  War  with  Russia.  59 

such  as  the  Roman  repubhc  used  to  meet  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  dictator.  The  chosen  policy  demanded  a 
statesman  who  should  possess  the  commanding  authority 
and  the  moral  intrepidity  of  Pitt.  But  instead  of  Pitt 
we  had  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell;  instead 
of  Nelson,  Sir  Charles  Napier;  and  instead  of  Wellington, 
Lord  Raglan;  and  over  all  of  them  the  embarrassing 
control  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Once  more  the  Emperor  of  the  French  was  allowed 
to  dictate  the  policy  of  the  British  Cabinet.  The  plan 
proposed  by  him  and  accepted  by  Lord  Aberdeen  was 
that  the  occupation  of  the  Black  Sea  by  the  two  fleets 
should  be  followed  by  a  message  requiring  that  the 
Russian  fleet  should  retire  within  the  harbour  of  Sevas- 
topol. This  spirited  action  satisfied  Palmerston,  who 
rejoined  the  Cabinet.  The  fleets  entered  the  Euxine  on 
January  4,  1854,  and  the  demand  of  France  and  Britain 
reached  Nicholas  on  January  12. 

Meanwhile  the  envoys  of  the  four  Powers  at  Constan- 
tinople were  still  pursuing  the  task  of  pacification,  and 
drafting  new  proposals  to  be  submitted  to  the  bellige- 
rents. But  the  demand  of  January  12  baffled  the  eff'orts 
of  the  peacemakers,  broke  up  the  concert  of  the  Powers, 
and  provoked  Russia  to  defiance.  The  Russian  ambas- 
sadors were  recalled  from  Paris  and  London,  and  the 
French  and  British  ambassadors  from  St.  Petersburg. 
A  British  fleet  was  ordered  to  sail  into  the  Baltic  under 
the  command  of  Sir  Charles  Napier;  but  there  was  still 
no  formal  declaration  of  war. 

Such  was  the  posture  of  aff"airs  when  Parliament 
assembled  for  the  session  of  1854. 

Bright  did  not  take  any  part  in  the  two  nights' 
debate  on  February  ig  and  20.  The  views  of  the  small 
remnant  that  still  believed  an  honourable  peace  to  be 
possible  were  expounded  at  length  by  Cobden.  He 
declared  himself  opposed  to  a  war  ''which  hangs  upon 


6o  John  Bright. 

so  fine  a  thread  as  whether  the  Suhan  shall  sign  a  note 
declaring-  to  the  Emperor  Nicholas  that  he  will  preserve 
the  rights  of  the  Christian  subjects,  or  whether  he  shall 
give  that  declaration  to  all  the  European  Powers.  Let 
us  fall  back",  he  added,  *'on  the  Vienna  Note."  This 
suggestion  was  received  with  cries  of  ridicule;  but 
Cobden  protested  that,  though  the  terms  of  the  Vienna 
Note  might  be  substantially  the  same  as  those  of 
Menschikoff's  Note,  the  honour  of  the  Sultan  could  not 
suffer  by  accepting  terms  which  came  to  him  as  the 
proposals  of  the  four  Powers,  and  therefore  not  as  the 
proposals  of  Russia. 

Three  weeks  later.  Bright  moved  the  adjournment  of 
the  House  in  order  to  call  attention  to  the  proceedings 
of  a  banquet  by  which  the  Reform  Club  had  celebrated 
the  appointment  of  two  of  its  members  to  the  command 
of  the  Baltic  and  Black  Sea  expeditions,  and  at  which 
Lord  Palmerston  had  presided,  and  two  other  ministers 
had  made  speeches.  There  had  been  a  good  deal  of 
boasting  of  the  sort  that  does  not  become  him  that 
putteth  on  his  armour, — boasting  to  be  remembered  with 
mortification  when  Napier  returned  without  laurels  from 
his  luckless  cruise — and  a  good  deal  of  what  Bright 
described  as  buffoonery  and  reckless  levity.  It  was 
inevitable  that  two  such  men  as  Palmerston  and  Bright, 
the  cheery  pagan  and  the  grave  apostle,  the  man  to 
whom  politics  were  a  career  and  the  man  to  whom  they 
were  a  mission,  should  misappreciate  one  another. 
Palmerston's  boyish  i?isouciance  served  a  useful  end  by 
helping  to  clear  the  public  mind  of  cant,  but  it  could 
not  be  anything  but  disgusting  to  Bright.  To  Palmer- 
ston the  earnestness  of  Bright  (*'the  honourable  aad 
reverend  gentleman  "  as  he  called  him  on  this  occasion) 
savoured  of  the  professional  gravity  of  the  pulpit. 
Bright  spoke  with  passionate  indignation,  and  was 
answered    by    Palmerston,    Graham,    and    his    old    ally 


The  War  with  Russia.  6i 

Molesworth,  with  an  angry  affectation  of  contempt. 
Macaulay,  whose  sympathy  with  Palmerston  was  as 
cordial  as  Bright's  antipathy,  wrote  in  his  diary:  '*  I 
went  to  the  House  on  Monday;  but  for  any  pleasure  I 
g"ot  I  mig-ht  as  well  have  stayed  away.  I  heard  Bright 
say  everything"  I  thought ;  and  I  heard  Palmerston  and 
Graham  expose  themselves  lamentably.  Palmerston's 
want  of  temper,  judgment,  and  good  breeding"  was 
almost  incredible."  Disraeli  contributed  some  g"Ood 
jokes  to  the  entertainment;  he  did  not  mind  the  two 
fleets  being"  commanded  by  two  sound  Reformers,  for 
'*it  must  be  recollected  that  a  sound  Reformer  is  a 
g"entleman  who  does  not  reform".  Such  was  the  temper 
of  our  statesmen  at  the  beginning-  of  that  period  of 
confusion,  mismanag"ement,  and  recrimination.  Mr. 
Spooner,  a  county  member  whose  sturdy  conservatism 
had  often  been  ridiculed  by  Bright,  manfully  declared 
his  sympathy  with  the  protest.  But  the  country  eagerly 
caught  the  tone  of  Palmerston,  and  thenceforward 
Bright's  testimony  against  the  war  was  addressed  to 
deaf  ears. 

On  March  27  a  Queen's  message  announced  to  Parlia- 
ment that  the  negotiations  with  the  Tsar  had  ter- 
minated, and  that  she  felt  bound  to  offer  assistance  to 
her  ally  the  Sultan  against  unprovoked  aggression,  and 
to  protect  the  dominions  of  the  Sultan  from  the  en- 
croachments of  Russia.  Four  days  later  the  reply  of  the 
Commons  was  moved  by  Lord  John  Russell,  and  gave 
occasion  for  the  first  of  Bright's  speeches  on  the  war. 

The  tone  of  this  speech  is,  by  comparison  with  the 
emotion  and  indignation  of  those  which  followed,  studi- 
ously restrained  and  unimpassioned.  Bright  declared, 
in  contradiction  to  Palmerston,  that  the  Ottoman  em- 
pire "was  gradually  falling  into  decay,  and  that  to 
pledge  ourselves  to  effect  its  recovery  and  sustentation 
was  to  undertake  what  no  human  power  would  be  able 


62  John  Bright. 

to  accomplish.  There  is  no  calamity,"  he  declared, 
appealing-  to  the  consular  reports,  **  which  can  be 
described  as  affecting-  any  country,  which  is  not  there 
proved  to  be  present,  and  actively  at  work,  in  almost 
every  province  of  the  Turkish  empire."  He  g^ave  a 
version  of  the  negotiations,  which  may  now  be  fully 
verified  by  the  elaborate  narrative  of  Kinglake.  He 
skilfully  directed  his  attack  upon  the  least  defensible 
point  of  the  case  for  the  war — the  rejection  of  the 
Vienna  Note.  **  What  are  we  to  think  of  these  arbitra- 
tors or  mediators,  the  four  ambassadors  at  Vienna  and 
the  Governments  of  F'rance  and  Britain,  who,  after  dis- 
cussing- the  matter  in  three  different  cities  and  at  three 
distinct  and  different  periods,  and  after  agreeing-  that 
the  proposition  was  one  which  Turkey  could  assent  to 
without  detriment  to  her  honour  and  independence, 
immediately  afterwards  turned  round,  and  declared  that 
the  note  was  one  which  Turkey  could  not  be  asked  to 
accede  to,  and  repudiated  in  the  most  formal  and  ex- 
press manner  that  which  they  had  themselves  drawn  up, 
and  which,  only  a  few  days  before,  they  had  approved 
of  as  a  combination  of  wisdom  and  diplomatic  dexterity 
which  had  never  been  excelled?" 

Brig-ht  attacked  the  very  foundation  of  the  Palmer- 
stonian  theory  of  national  obligations  by  asserting-  that 
"the  whole  notion  of  the  balance  of  power  is  a  mis- 
chievous delusion  ",  and  by  reiterating  his  doctrine  of 
''  non-intervention  in  every  case  where  the  interests  of 
the  country  are  not  directly  and  obviously  assailed ". 
He  devoted  a  few  sentences  to  the  injury  the  war  would 
inflict  on  the  national  trade,  and  turned  the  favourite 
phrase  of  the  Palmerstonians  against  them  by  asking 
what  would  be  the  effect  of  an  exhausting  war  upon 
the  balance  of  power  between  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  her  chief  rival  in  industry  and  at  sea.  **Our 
people,    suffering   and    discontented,    as   in    all    former 


The  War  with  Russia.  63 

periods  of  war,  will  emigrate  in  increasing"  numbers  to 
a  country  whose  wise  policy  is  to  keep  itself  free  from 
the  entanglement  of  European  politics."  Such  a  con- 
tention provoked  the  retort  that  Bright  cared  more  to 
ask  whether  a  policy  was  cheap  than  whether  it  was 
demanded  by  honour  and  justice.  But  by  Bright  him- 
self it  was  never  placed  in  the  forefront  of  his  argument. 

Another  passage  has  special  significance,  as  uttered 
by  a  man  in  whose  mind  the  ethical  aspect  of  any  ques- 
tion of  deliberation  always  held  the  first  place.  If  we 
admit  the  common  assumption  that  the  duties  of  nations 
are  exactly  analogous  to  the  duties  of  persons,  the 
policy  of  non-intervention  must  often  be  comparable 
with  the  abnegation  of  the  duty  a  man  owes  to  an 
oppressed  neighbour.  It  was  characteristic  of  Bright 
that  he  never  shrank  from  any  legitimate  conclusion  of 
his  accepted  maxims.  **  It  is  not  on  a  question  of  sym- 
pathy that  I  dare  involve  this  country,  or  any  country, 
in  a  war  which  must  cost  an  incalculable  amount  of 
treasure  and  of  blood.  It  is  not  my  duty  to  make  this 
country  the  knight-errant  of  the  human  race,  and  to 
take  upon  herself  the  protection  of  the  thousand  mil- 
lions of  human  beings  who  have  been  permitted  by  the 
Creator  of  all  things  to  people  this  planet." 

No  one  who  reads  this  memorable  speech  with  a 
recollection  of  subsequent  history  will  hesitate  to  admit 
that  the  theory  of  foreign  policy  there  proclaimed, 
though  condemned  at  the  time  by  most  Englishmen  as 
destructive  of  the  true  conception  of  national  honour, 
has  steadily  gained  ground  during  the  past  forty  years. ^ 
No  one  will  deny  that  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  speech 

^  "They  (Cobden  and  Bright)  were  routed  on  the  question  of  the  Crimean 
war,  but  it  was  the  rapid  spread  of  their  principles  which  within  the  next 
twenty  years  made  intervention  impossible  in  the  Franco-Austrian  war,  in 
the  American  war,  in  the  Danish  war,  in  the  Franco-German  war,  and 
above  all  in  the  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey."— Morley,  Life  of  Cob  den  t 
ii.  159- 


64  John  Bright. 

Bright's  reasoning-  was  at  least  so  far  pertinent  as  to 
deserve  a  serious  and  detailed  reply  from  those  who 
were  responsible  for  the  declaration  of  the  war.  It  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  no  reply  was  attempted. 
Lord  Palmerston  took  up  Bright's  challenge  to  ** explain 
what  is  meant  by  the  balance  of  power  ",  and  supplied 
a  gloss  of  that  term  which  may  fairly  rank  with  Mr. 
Curdle's  definition  of  the  Unities  of  the  Drama.  Lord 
John  Russell  had  nothing  to  add.  They  justly  relied  on 
the  popular  prejudice  against  Quakerism  to  annul  the 
effect  of  the  speech  on  public  opinion. 

Bright  did  not  again  address  the  House  on  the  war 
until  December  22.  The  intervening  period  had  been 
crowded  with  great  events.  The  hardly  won  victory  of 
the  Alma  had  proved  that  the  long  peace  had  not  im- 
paired the  fighting  qualities  of  the  British  army;  the  first 
assault  upon  Sevastopol  had  been  made  and  repelled; 
the  British  cavalry  at  Balaklava  had  performed  an 
achievement  to  be  commemorated  in  song  or  story  as 
long  as  courage  and  discipline  hold  their  place  in  the 
estimation  of  Englishmen ;  and  at  Inkermann  the  same 
obstinate  valour  that  won  Waterloo  had  just  prevailed 
to  avert  defeat  in  spite  of  the  failure  of  leadership.  It 
had  become  apparent  that  the  war  into  which  the  nation 
had  plunged,  or  drifted,  with  a  light  heart,  would  end,  if 
in  victory,  in  a  victory  purchased  at  an  enormous  cost 
of  life  and  treasure.  The  spirit  of  the  people  had  changed 
from  exultation  to  anxiety,  but  it  was  not  less  resolute. 
Even  those  who  had  believed  that  the  war  might  have 
been  avoided  without  detriment  to  the  national  honour 
could  not  venture  to  ask  a  proud  nation  to  sue  for  peace 
while  the  fortune  of  war  still  hung  in  the  balance. 

By  this  time,  too,  the  grievous  Crimean  winter  had 
begun;  and  already  a  great  cry  of  indignation  against 
administrative  incompetence  had  been  raised,  and  was 
daily  gathering  volume  and  intensity.     A  people  distin- 


The  War  with  Russia.  65 

gulshed  among-  all  the  nations  of  the  world  by  the  success 
of  its  middle-class  in  the  org-anization  and  direction  of 
those  great  undertaking's  which  prosper  by  patient  fore- 
sight and  the  diligent  care  of  details,  had  entrusted  the 
business  of  the  State  to  patrician  officials,  and  now,  as 
soon  as  the  stress  became  severe,  found  that  business 
hopelessly  mismanaged.  The  Crimean  winter  was  the 
crowning  opprobrium  of  Tite  Barnacle  and  the  Circum- 
locution Office.  Thousands  of  men  died  that  winter  the 
victims  of  the  system  of  aristocratic  patronage,  against 
which  Bright  and  his  friends  had  testified  in  vain. 

The  measure,  to  pass  which  Parliament  was  convened 
on  the  brink  of  Christmas,  was  a  Bill  to  authorize  the 
enlistment  of  foreigners.  This  Bill,  which  involved  a 
breach  of  international  courtesy  for  which  Palmerston 
had  to  apologize  to  the  United  States,  was  resisted  by 
the  Conservative  opposition,  and  when  Bright  rose  at 
midnight  on  the  second  evening  of  the  debate  on  the 
third  reading,  he  was  secure  of  an  attentive  and  not 
wholly  unsympathetic  audience.  He  spoke  briefly,  but 
with  an  intensity  of  indignation  that  carried  his  invective 
to  the  extreme  limits  permitted  by  the  courtesy  of  par- 
Hamentary  debate.  Again  and  again  his  mistrust  of 
Russell  and  his  antipathy  to  Palmerston  were  declared 
in  language  bordering  on  ferocity.  Once  more  he  fixed 
on  the  rejection  of  the  Vienna  Note  as  the  capital  error 
of  the  Government.^  *' You  are  making  war  against  a 
Government  which  accepted  your  own  terms  of  peace." 
He  reinforced  his  former  argument  by  quoting  from  a 
despatch  of  which  the  public  had  not  been  in  possession 
at  the  time  of  the  first  speech.  The  defence  of  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  Vienna  Note  had  been  that  Russia  had,  con- 
trary to  the  intention  of  the  Powers,  construed  that  note 

1  Twenty  years  later  Russell  admitted  this.  "  Had  I  been  prime  minister 
I  should  have  insisted  on  the  acceptanceof  the  Austrian  '^o\&." —Recollections 
and  Suggestions,  p.  271. 

(M433)  E 


66  John  Bright. 

as  equivalent  to  Menschikoff's  Note.  The  despatch 
quoted  by  Brig-ht,  and  suppressed  in  the  blue-books, 
was  one  in  which  the  French  Government  urg-ed  Russia 
to  accede  to  the  Vienna  Note,  for  the  express  reason 
that  'Mts  general  sense  differed  in  nothings  from  the 
sense  of  the  proposition  presented  by  Prince  Menschi- 
koff".i 

The  peroration  of  this  fine  speech  was  most  impas- 
sioned. '*  Let  it  not  be  said  that  I  am  alone  in  my 
condemnation  of  this  war,  and  of  this  incapable  and 
g-uilty  Administration.  And  even  if  I  were  alone,  if 
mine  were  a  solitary  voice,  raised  amid  the  din  of  arms 
and  the  clamours  of  a  venal  press,  I  should  have  the 
consolation  I  have  to-night,  and  which  I  trust  will  be 
mine  to  the  last  moment  of  my  existence, — the  priceless 
consolation  that  no  word  of  mine  has  tended  to  promote 
the  squandering  of  my  country's  treasure  or  the  spilling 
of  one  single  drop  of  my  country's  blood." 

This  speech,  delivered  with  unusual  vehemence  of 
manner  to  an  audience  strongly  disaffected  towards  the 
Government,  penetrated  the  mind  of  the  House  far  more 
deeply  than  the  more  elaborate  reasoning  of  the  first 
speech.  It  was  felt  that  the  credit  of  the  Ministry 
demanded  some  reply;  and,  when  Bright  sat  down, 
there  were  loud  cries  for  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  only  leading 
minister  v/ho  had  not  yet  spoken.  But  neither  Mr. 
Gladstone  nor  any  other  minister  rose ;  the  division  was 
taken  at  once ;  and  one  of  the  most  spirited  and  incisive 
attacks  ever  made  on  an  English  ministry  remained  for 
ever  unanswered.  Charles  Greville  wrote  in  his  journal: 
**  The  third  reading  of  the  Enlistment  Bill  carried  by  38, 
after  a  very  fine  speech  from  Bright,  consisting  of  part 

1  The  importance  of  this  discovery  is  curiously  indicated  by  the  insertion 
of  the  original  French  in  the  reports  of  Bright's  speech  both  in  the  Times 
and  in  Hansard.  Rogers's  edition  wrongly  makes  it  appear  that  Bright 
himself  cited  the  original  as  well  as  a  translation. 


The  War  with  Russia.  67 

of  his  letter/  with  its  illustrations.  In  my  opinion  this 
speech  was  unanswerable,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to 
answer  it.  He  was  very  severe  on  both  Lord  John  and 
Palmerston.  It  is  impossible  that  such  reasonings  as 
Bright's  should  not  make  some  impression  on  the  country; 
but  I  do  not  think  any  reasoning,  however  powerful,  or 
any  display  of  facts,  however  striking,  can  stem  the  tor- 
rent of  public  opinion,  which  still  clamours  for  war,  and 
is  so  burning  with  hatred  against  Russia,  that  no  peace 
could  be  deemed  satisfactory,  or  even  tolerable,  that  did 
not  humble  Russia  to  the  dust,  and  strip  her  of  some 
considerable  territory." 

Bright  voted  with  the  Conservatives  in  this  division. 
Within  five  weeks  the  Aberdeen  Ministry  had  fallen. 
Mr.  Roebuck  brought  forward  a  resolution  for  a  com- 
mittee to  inquire  into  the  maladministration.  Lord 
John  resigned  without  waiting  for  the  debate.  ^'The 
hon.  member  for  Sheffield",  said  Bright,  '' came  forward 
as  a  little  David  with  a  sling  and  a  stone, — weapons 
which  he  did  not  even  use,  but  at  the  sight  of  which  the 
Whig  Goliath  went  howling  and  vanquished  to  the  back 
benches."  The  resolution  was  carried;  but  the  Con- 
servatives were  unable  to  form  a  Cabinet,  and  the  Coali- 
tion Ministry  was  reconstructed,  Russell,  Aberdeen,  and 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  being  thrown  overboard,  and 
Palmerston  becoming  Prime  Minister.  In  a  few  weeks, 
however,  Mr.  Gladstone  and  two  other  Peelites  resigned, 
disagreeing  with  their  new  chief  on  the  appointment  of 
Roebuck's  committee;  Lord  John  returned  to  office,  and 
the  Ministry  became  purely  Liberal. 

Early  in  the  new  year  negotiations  for  peace  were 
opened  at  Vienna,  Russell  attending  as  the  represen- 
tative  of  the   Queen.      At  this  crisis   (Feb.    2^,    185^) 

1  The  letter  to  Watkin  had  appeared  in  the  Times  of  Nov.  3.  "This 
letter",  Greville  had  written,  "as  nearly  as  possible  expresses  my  own 
opinion  on  the  subject." 


68  John  Bright. 

Bright  delivered  a  speech,  a  masterpiece  of  rhetorical 
pathos,  and  notably  different  in  tone  from  the  two  that 
preceded.  He  did  not  now  deal  in  invective.  The 
Government  had  shown  a  disposition  to  conclude  the 
war  which  he  strove  earnestly  to  encouragfe.  Not  a 
word  sugg^estive  of  his  animosity  to  Palmerston  was 
allowed  to  escape  his  lips.  Even  when  repeatingf  a 
description  given  just  twelve  months  before  of  Russia 
as  ''  impreg^nable  within  her  own  boundaries,  but  nearly 
powerless  for  any  purposes  of  offence  ",  he  forebore  to 
remind  the  House  that  it  was  Palmerston  who  had  said 
this,^  —  Palmerston,  who  was  now  invading-  that  im- 
preg"nable  empire  in  order  to  prevent  those  impossible 
ag-gressions.  He  did  not  even  plead  for  any  modifica- 
tion of  the  terms  offered  to  Russia.  ^'  You  have  offered 
terms  of  peace,  which,  as  I  understand  them,  I  do  not 
say  are  not  moderate."  But  he  still  feared  the  influence 
of  the  extreme  war  party  in  the  House  and  the  country. 
He  besought  the  Government  to  neglect  those  who 
''have  entertained  dreams,  —  impracticable  theories, — 
expectations  of  vast  European  and  Asiatic  changes,  of 
revived  nationalities,  and  of  a  new  map  of  Europe,  if 
not  of  the  world,  as  a  result  of  the  war",  and  to  hold 
in  good  faith  to  the  terms  they  had  proposed. 

Bright's  reputation  as  the  greatest  English  master  of 
the  oratory  of  sentiment  may  confidently  be  staked  upon 
the  last  few  sentences  of  this  speech, — sentences  pure 
and  unlaboured  in  diction,  majestic  in  rhythm,  and 
reflecting  even  in  the  irregularity  of  their  construction 
the  tumult  of  noble  emotion. 

*'  I  cannot  but  notice  that  an  uneasy  feeling  exists  as 
to  the  news  which  may  arrive  by  the  very  next  mail 
from  the  East.  I  do  not  suppose  that  your  troops  are 
to  be  beaten  in  actual  conflict  with  the  foe,  or  that  they 
will  be  driven  into  the  sea;  but  I  am  certain  that  many 
1  Feb.  20,  1854.     Bright  slightly  exaggerates  Palmerston's  words. 


The  War  with  Russia.  69 

homes  in  Engfland  in  which  there  now  exists  a  fond  hope 
that  the  distant  one  may  return — many  such  homes  may 
be  rendered  desolate  when  the  next  mail  shall  arrive. 
The  angel  of  death  has  been  abroad  throughout  the 
land;  you  may  almost  hear  the  beating  of  his  wings. 
There  is  no  one,  as  when  the  first-born  were  slain  of  old, 
to  sprinkle  with  blood  the  lintel  and  the  two  side-posts 
of  our  doors,  that  he  may  spare  and  pass  on;  he  takes 
his  victims  from  the  castle  of  the  noble,  the  mansion  of 
the  wealthy,  and  the  cottage  of  the  poor  and  the  lowly, 
and  it  is  on  behalf  of  all  these  classes  that  I  make  this 
solemn  appeal.  I  tell  the  noble  lord  that,  if  he  be  ready 
honestly  and  frankly  to  endeavour,  by  the  negotiations 
about  to  be  opened  at  Vienna,  to  put  an  end  to  this  war, 
no  word  of  mine,  no  vote  of  mine,  will  be  given  to  shake 
his  power  for  one  single  moment,  or  to  change  his  posi- 
tion in  this  House.  I  am  sure  that  the  noble  lord  is  not 
inaccessible  to  appeals  made  to  him  from  honest  motives 
and  with  no  unfriendly  feeling.  The  noble  lord  has 
been  for  more  than  forty  years  a  member  of  this  House. 
Before  I  was  born  he  sat  upon  the  Treasury  bench,  and 
he  has  spent  his  life  in  the  service  of  his  country.  He  is 
no  longer  young,  and  his  life  has  extended  almost  to  the 
term  allotted  to  man.  I  would  ask,  I  would  entreat  the 
noble  lord  to  take  a  course  which,  when  he  looks  back 
upon  his  whole  political  career,  whatever  he  may  therein 
find  to  be  pleased  with,  whatever  to  regret,  cannot  but 
be  a  source  of  gratification  to  him.  By  adopting  that 
course  he  would  have  the  satisfaction  of  reflecting  that, 
having  obtained  the  object  of  his  laudable  ambition, 
having  become  the  foremost  subject  of  the  Crown,  the 
director  of,  it  may  be,  the  destinies  of  his  country,  and 
the  presiding  genius  in  her  councils,  he  had  achieved  a 
still  higher  and  nobler  ambition, — that  he  had  returned 
the  sword  to  the  scabbard — that  at  his  word  torrents  of 
blood  had  ceased  to  flow — that  he  had  restored  tran- 


70  John  Bright. 

quillity  to  Europe,  and  saved  this  country  from  the  inde- 
scribable calamities  of  war." 

At  Vienna  the  Allies  claimed  four  main  concessions 
from  Russia,  of  which  three  were  not  resisted.  These 
were  the  withdrawal  of  Russian  troops  and  influence 
from  the  Danubian  provinces,  and  the  relinquishment  of 
the  claims  of  Russia  to  the  exclusive  protectorate  of  the 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte,  and  to  the  control  of  the 
mouths  of  the  Danube.  The  Allies  also  stipulated  that 
the  predominance  hitherto  secured  by  treaty  to  Russia 
in  the  Black  Sea  should  cease.  Upon  this  demand,  the 
third  of  the  famous  four  points,  the  negotiations  broke 
down.  This  failure  compelled  Bright,  in  June,  to  resume 
his  former  attitude  of  bitter  hostility  to  the  Government. 
His  expectation  that  they  would  conduct  the  negotiations 
in  a  pacific  spirit  had  been  disappointed.  The  solution 
proposed  of  the  Black  Sea  difficulty  had  been  that  Russia 
and  Turkey  should  be  allowed  eight  ships  each,  and 
France  and  Britain  four  ships  each,  on  the  Sea.  An 
alternative  to  this  proposal  was  that  the  Sea  should  be 
declared  inaccessible  to  war-ships  of  all  nations.  Russia 
had  refused  to  "give  herself  up  disarmed  at  the  good 
pleasure  of  the  Napoleons  and  the  Palmerstons,  who 
would  themselves  be  able  to  have  armed  forces  in  the 
Mediterranean".  *'If  any  diplomatist  from  this  country," 
said  Bright,  ''  under  the  same  circumstances  that  Russia 
is  placed  in,  had  consented  to  terms  such  as  the  noble 
lord  has  endeavoured  to  force  upon  Russia,  when  he 
entered  this  House,  he  Vv^ould  be  met  by  one  universal 
shout  of  execration,  and,  as  a  public  man,  would  be 
ruined  for  ever."  Bright's  salutary  practice  of  trying  to 
see  the  enemy's  side  also  of  such  a  question  has  since 
been  improved  by  some  of  his  followers,  who  too  often 
refuse  to  see  any  other. 

Bright's  invective  was  now  more  than  ever  personal 
to  the  two  ''authors  of  the  war",  Russell  and  Palmer- 


The  War  with  Russia.  71 

ston.  He  taunted  them  with  failure:  ^*they  have  not 
yet  crippled  Russia,  although  it  is  admitted  that  they 
have  almost  destroyed  Turkey".  The  country  had  been 
*'the  sport  of  their  ancient  rivalry",  and  was  in  peril  of 
becoming-  ''the  victim  of  their  policy".  He  told  Rus- 
sell, who  three  years  before  had  rudely  dismissed  Pal- 
merston  from  his  Cabinet  for  insubordination,  that  he 
was  now  ''going  to  sea  with  no  chart  on  a  most  dan- 
gerous and  interminable  voyage  with  the  very  reckless 
captain  whom  he  would  not  trust  as  mate".  He  accused 
him  of  "that  description  of  moral  cowardice  which  in 
every  man  is  the  death  of  all  true  statesmanship".  He 
spoke  of  Palmerston  as  "  a  man  who  had  experience, 
but  with  experience  had  not  gained  wisdom;  who  had 
age,  but  who  with  age  had  not  the  gravity  of  age ". 
"  You,  who  now  fancy  that  you  are  fulfilling  the  behests 
of  the  national  will,  will  find  yourselves  pointed  to  as 
the  men  who  ought  to  have  taught  the  nation  better." 

He  assailed  Palmerston  still  more  injuriously  six 
weeks  later,  when  Russell,  who  had  admitted  at  Vienna 
that  he  himself  approved  terms  of  peace  which  his  in- 
structions obliged  him  to  reject,  had  been  compelled  to 
expiate  this  indiscretion  by  yet  another  resignation. 
Bright  suspected  that  the  Cabinet  had  had  no  intention 
of  making  peace,  and  had  sent  Russell,  whose  aim  was 
really  pacific,  to  Vienna  on  a  fool's  errand ;  and  saw  in 
his  resignation  the  triumph  of  "  a  disreputable  and  con- 
temptible cabal ".  He  charged  the  younger  members  of 
the  Cabinet  with  ingratitude  to  their  old  chief,  and  Pal- 
merston with  the  motive  of  a  jealous  desire  to  get  rid  of 
his  competitor,  and  with  indiff'erence  to  the  desolation 
and  sorrow  caused  by  his  policy.  "The  Queen",  he 
said,  "may  make  a  minister  or  a  prime  minister,  but 
it  is  not  in  royalty  to  make  a  statesman." 

The  war  lasted  a  few  months  longer.  In  September 
Sevastopol  fell,  and  the  negotiations  were  resumed.     In 


72  John  Bright. 

the  end  Russia  accepted  terms  which  opened  the  Black 
Sea  to  commerce,  and  closed  it  to  the  navies  of  all 
nations  alike.  This  stipulation  Russell  calls  ''very 
harsh  and  unusual ".  In  his  first  speech  on  the  war 
Bright  had  said:  ''What  do  you  propose  to  do?  How 
is  Turkey  to  be  secured?  Will  you  make  a  treaty  with 
Russia,  and  force  conditions  upon  her?  What  security 
have  you  that  one  treaty  will  be  more  binding-  than 
another?  It  is  easy  to  find  or  make  a  reason  for  break- 
ing a  treaty,  when  it  is  the  interest  of  a  country  to  break 
it."  This  prediction  has  been  exactly  fulfilled.  In  1870 
the  Tsar  declared  the  Black  Sea  clauses  of  the  Treaty  of 
Paris  null  and  void,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  enforce 
them. 

There  are  three  great  epochs  in  Bright's  career,  each 
marked  by  an  act  of  revolt  from  the  Liberal  party.  In 
1843  he  took  the  lead  of  the  Free-traders  who  rejected 
Russell's  compromise  on  the  question  of  the  Corn  Law, 
and  pursued  an  agitation  in  defiance  of  party  discipline. 
In  1854  he  refused  to  accept  the  guidance  of  Russell  and 
Palmerston  on  a  memorable  question  of  foreign  policy. 
In  1886  he  rebelled  against  the  only  leader  whom  he  had 
ever  followed  with  the  loyalty  of  respect. 

No  political  orator  appealed  more  frequently  or  with 
so  much  confidence  to  the  verdict  of  history.  Upon  the 
secessions  of  1843  and  1854  that  verdict  may  be  said  to 
be  already  recorded  and  to  be  recorded  in  favour  of  the 
appellant.  The  first  revolt  was  justified  by  immediate 
success;  the  second  has  been  justified  by  the  gradual 
acceptance  by  statesmen  of  all  parties  of  principles  of 
action  approximating  to  those  which  Bright  stood  almost 
alone  in  defending.  The  time  has  not  yet  come  when 
any  writer  can  affect  impartiality  in  giving  his  judgment 
on  the  third. 


India.  73 

Chapter  IV. 
India. 

In  January,  1856,  at  a  time  when  the  prospect  of 
peace  had  become  certain,  Bright's  health  began  to 
break  down,  and  for  more  than  two  years  he  was  unable 
to  take  any  active  part  in  public  affairs.  *'  From  appa- 
rent health",  he  said  after  his  recovery,  "  I  was  brought 
down  to  a  condition  of  weakness  exceeding  the  weak- 
ness of  a  little  child,  in  which  I  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  nor  converse  for  more  than  a  few  minutes  without 
distress  and  without  peril."  His  physicians  feared  serious 
injury  to  his  mental  powers,^  and  before  the  end  of  the 
year,  which  was  spent  by  him  in  travel,  the  reports  of 
his  condition  filled  his  friends  w^ith  grave  anxiety.  Cob- 
den  wrote  in  November:  ''Bright's  loss,  if  permanent, 
is  a  public  calamity.  If  you  could  take  the  opinion  of 
the  whole  House,  he  would  be  pronounced  by  a  large 
majority  to  combine  more  earnestness,  courage,  honesty, 
and  eloquence  than  any  other  man.  But  we  will  not 
speak  of  him  as  of  the  past.  God  grant  that  he  may 
recover!" 

Early  in  the  following  year  his  offer  to  resign  his 
seat  for  Manchester  was  rejected  with  a  unanimity  and 
generosity  which  w^ould  seem  scarcely  consistent  with 
the  catastrophe  of  a  few  months  later,  did  we  not  remem- 
ber that  elections  are  determined  by  the  votes  of  persons 
the  great  majority  of  whom  pay  little  attention  to  public 
affairs  between  one  election  and  the  next. 

^  Some  of  his  opponents  saw  in  the  disease  of  the  brain  a  proof  that  his 
illness  was  a  Divine  judgment  on  his  unchristian  love  of  peace.  ' '  One 
Scotch  lord  told  a  great  audience  that  I  was  afflicted  by  a  visitation  of 
Providence,  and  that  I  was  suffering  from  a  disease  of  the  brain.  His 
friends  can  tell  whether  that  is  a  complaint  with  which  he  is  ever  likely  to 
be  afflicted." 


74  John  Bright. 

During  his  absence  from  Parliament  Palmerston  pur- 
sued the  now  popular  policy  of  quarrelling  and  warfare. 
In  1857  we  were  at  war  with  Persia  and  with  China. 
The  dispute  with  China  turned  on  the  question  whether 
the  coasting  schooner  Arrow,  on  board  of  which  the 
Chinese  police  had  arrested  certain  Chinamen  suspected 
of  piracy,  was  or  was  not  a  vessel  entitled  to  the  pro- 
tection of  the  British  flag.  The  evidence  showed  clearly 
that  she  was  not  so  entitled,  and  that  the  violent  mea- 
sures of  the  Government  had  no  justification.  A  vote 
of  censure  moved  by  Cobden  was  supported  not  only  by 
the  small  party  that  still  habitually  voted  with  him,  but 
by  the  Peelites  who  had  helped  to  make  the  Crimean 
war,  and  by  the  Conservatives  who  had  at  least  con- 
doned it,  Disraeli,  Cobden,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  voting 
in  the  same  lobby.  By  this  '^  fortuitous  concourse  of 
atoms  ",  as  Palmerston  called  it,  the  Government  was 
defeated.  Bright  wrote  to  his  friend  from  Rome:  '*  I 
need  not  tell  you  how  greatly  pleased  I  was  with  the 
news,  and  especially  ^that  the  blow  was  given  by  your 
hand  ". 

Palmerston  took  a  course  then  more  unusual  than  it 
has  since  become.  Instead  of  resigning  he  appealed 
from  the  Commons  to  the  country,  with  a  confidence, 
fully  justified  by  the  result,  that  the  popularity  he  enjoyed 
as  a  strong  minister,  and  that  distrust  of  a  coalition  of 
factions  which  is  characteristic  of  the  British  electorate, 
would  carry  him  triumphantly  through  a  general  election. 
He  had  recently  visited  Manchester,  where  he  was  re- 
ceived by  Bright's  constituents  with  ominous  enthusiasm. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  his  friends  in  that  borough 
would  spare  the  man  who  had  assailed  their  leader  with 
a  vehemence  exceeding  the  customary  bounds  of  political 
enmity.  Two  local  Liberals  of  Palmerston's  school, 
whose  undistinguished  names  may  be  found  In  the  poll- 
books,  were  nominated  against  Bright  and  Milner  Gib- 


India.  75 

son.  Nothing"  could  be  more  complete  than  the  victory. 
In  1852  Bright  and  his  colleag-ue  had  had  a  majority  in 
every  ward  except  one;  in  1857  they  were  in  a  minority 
in  every  ward.  Brig-ht  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  poll, 
nearly  3000  votes  below  his  leading"  antagonist.  Man- 
chester appeared  to  have  renounced  the  Manchester 
School.  Doubtless  many  causes  contributed  to  this 
disaster;  but  the  testimony  of  the  time  agrees  in  attri- 
buting" it  mainly  to  the  unpopularity  of  Bright's  opposi- 
tion to  the  war.  The  inexpiable  offence  had  been  the 
letter  to  Watkin,  which,  unhappily  for  its  author,  had 
been  translated  and  circulated  in  Russia  by  order  of  the 
Tsar.  At  the  same  time  Cobden  suffered  defeat  at 
Huddersfield. 

It  would  be  idle  to  repeat  here  the  charge  of  ingrati- 
tude with  which  the  Manchester  Liberals  were  assailed. 
By  revolting"  from  the  party  to  which  his  constituents 
were  attached,  Bright  had  accepted  the  risk  of  losing" 
their  support.  His  claims  on  their  gratitude  were  no 
doubt  exceptional,  for  they  were  the  master  cotton- 
spinners,  who  had  most  eagerly  desired  the  repeal  of 
the  Corn  Law,  and  who  owed  to  the  victory  won  by  the 
extraordinary  exertions  of  Bright  and  Cobden  the  aug- 
mentation both  of  their  wealth  and  their  political  and 
social  dignity.  But  it  was  not  unreasonable  to  argue 
that  the  intention  of  representative  institutions  would 
be  frustrated  if  men  were  deterred  by  gratitude  for  past 
services,  however  eminent,  from  casting  a  sincere  vote 
on  a  question  of  present  importance  submitted  to  the 
suffrages  of  the  country.  The  outstanding  question  at 
that  crisis  was,  not  whether  Bright  had  served  the 
country  and  his  order  well  fifteen  years  before,  but 
whether  his  enemy  Palmerston  was  still  to  be  prime 
minister  of  England.  Palmerston  was  the  only  possible 
prime  minister  of  the  Liberal  party — indeed,  he  was  the 
only  possible  prime  minister  of  any  party,  if  the  proba- 


76  John  Bright. 

bility  that  the  supporters  of  Disraeli  would  outnumber 
any  combination  of  Liberals,  Radicals,  and  Peelites  was 
small  enoug-h  to  be  neglected ;  for  no  stable  Government 
could  possibly  be  formed  by  the  temporary  coalition  that 
had  driven  him  to  appeal  to  the  country. 

Bright  took  leave  of  Manchester  in  an  admirable  letter, 
in  which  his  characteristic  self-confidence  is  expressed 
with  sing-ular  dignity.  Neither  then  nor  afterwards  did 
he  condescend  to  complaint  or  reproach,  unless  in  a 
single  sentence  of  his  first  speech  at  Birmingham.  "  If 
there  be  those  in  the  defence  of  whose  interests  the 
priane  years  of  my  life  have  been  spent,  who,  when  I  was 
stricken  down  and  enduring  a  tedious  exile,  subjected 
me  to  passionate  and  ungenerous  treatment,  I  have  the 
consolation  of  knowing  that  their  act  was  not  approved 
by  the  country." 

This  boast  was  fully  justified.  If  the  burgesses  of 
Manchester  expected  the  applause  of  the  nation  for 
postponing  gratitude  to  patriotism,  they  were  entirely 
disappointed.  The  Times,  which  had  strongly  resented 
Bright's  protest  against  the  war,  and  which  was  at  that 
time  supporting  Palmerston's  claims,  had  before  the 
election  supported  Bright's  candidature  with  a  gener- 
osity rarely  permitted  by  the  exigence  of  party  warfare. 
After  the  defeat.  Conservative  journals  joined  with  the 
independent  Liberal  press  of  the  provinces  in  such  ex- 
pressions of  regret  at  his  disappearance  from  Parliament, 
as  prove  that  Cobden  had  scarcely  exaggerated  the 
general  esteem  in  which  his  friend  was  held.^ 

On  the  loth  of  August,  1857,  whilst  still  abroad  and 
ill.  Bright  was  returned  without  opposition  by  Birming- 
ham,  a  constituency  which  he  continued  to  represent 

^The  Saturday  Review,  for  example,  said:  "Rarely  have  politicians 
retired  from  the  parliamentary  stage  attended  by  so  general  an  expression 
of  respect  and  esteem  as  that  which  Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  have 
received  from  those  who  were  most  opposed  to  the  ideas  and  principles  by 
which  their  careers  were  guided  ". 


India.  77 

without  interruption  until  his  death  thirty-two  years 
later.  Manchester  had  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  g-iving* 
its  name  to  the  advanced  school  of  Liberal  politicians. 
Almost  simultaneously  with  Bright's  change  of  constitu- 
ency, Birmingham  became,  and  for  many  years  remained, 
the  recognized  head-quarters  of  Radicalism.  The  share 
taken  by  this  town  in  the  anti-corn-law  agitation  had 
been  comparatively  insignificant;  but  it  had  played  a 
more  conspicuous  part  in  the  movement  that  preceded 
the  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  and  at  Bright's  first  visit  to  his 
new  constituents  he  invited  them  to  take  the  lead  with 
him  in  a  new  agitation  for  parliamentary  reform.  The 
history  of  this  enterprise  will  form  the  subject  of  the 
next  chapter.  Another  subject,  in  which  Bright  inter- 
ested himself  with  scarcely  less  ardour,  claims  attention 
first. 

The  first  question  of  importance  with  which  Parlia- 
ment had  to  deal  after  Bright's  return  was  that  of  the 
government  of  India.  The  Mutiny,  which  befell  at  the 
time  of  the  general  election,  had  forced  upon  all  parties 
the  necessity  for  such  constitutional  reforms  in  the 
administration  of  that  part  of  our  Empire  as  Bright  had 
already  advocated.  For  fifteen  years  he  had  been  the 
foremost  assailant  of  the  East  India  Company,  and  of 
the  system,  established  in  1784,  and  from  time  to  time 
renewed  with  modifications,  by  which  India  was  g"ov- 
erned  by  the  Directors  of  the  Company,  checked  by  a 
Board  of  Control  responsible  through  its  president  to 
the  sovereign  and  to  Parliament.  In  1858  that  system 
was  suddenly  abandoned  and  the  Company  abolished. 
"That  was  exactly  what  we  had  asked  them  to  do  in 
1853,"  said  Bright  later;  '*but  nothing  is  done  until  there 
comes  an  overwhelming  calamity,  when  the  most  obtuse 
and  perverse  is  driven  from  his  position."  It  has  ap- 
peared convenient  to  defer  to  this  point  the  history  of 
Bright's  earlier  dealings  with  the  Indian  question. 


7^  John  Bright. 

Before  his  opinions  are  recorded  we  have  to  confront 
the  view  that  he  was  disquaUfied  by  ignorance  and  pre- 
judice from  holding"  any  respectable  opinions  on  India  at 
all.  He  had,  we  are  often  told,  no  trustworthy  know- 
ledge of  India,  and  his  religious  antipathy  to  war  and 
conquest  predisposed  him  to  disparage  the  conduct 
of  an  authority  acquired  and  held  by  force  of  arms. 
This  view  is  presented  with  some  severity  in  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen's  account  of  an  attack  made  on  Bright  by  Sir 
James  Fitzjames  Stephen  in  1877.  The  immediate  ques- 
tion at  issue  was  whether  the  British  Government  had 
done  what  it  was  reasonable  to  expect  for  the  improve- 
ment of  Indian  irrigation.  Stephen  accused  Bright  of 
gross  ignorance  of  the  facts.  Thirty  years  before  Bright 
had  been  chairman  of  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  appointed  to  consider  this  very  subject;  and 
it  may  be  remarked  that  the  imputations  of  ignorance, 
so  easily  made  by  persons  who  have  served  in  India 
whenever  a  member  of  Parliament  offers  an  opinion  on 
Indian  affairs,  bring  us  perilously  near  the  conclusion, — 
surely  anti-imperialistic, — that  Parliament,  that  is,  that 
Britain,  is  not  well  qualified  to  govern  India  at  all. 
**  His  wrath,  however,"  says  the  biographer  of  Stephen, 
**  was  really  aroused  by  the  moral  assumptions  involved. 
Bright,  he  thought,  represented  the  view  of  the  common- 
place shopkeeper,  intensified  by  the  prejudices  of  the 
Quaker.  To  him  ambition  and  conquest  naturally 
represented  simple  crimes.  Ambition,  retorts  Fitzjames, 
is  the  incentive  to  all  manly  virtues ;  and  conquest  is  an 
essential  factor  in  the  building  up  of  all  nations.  We 
should  be  proud,  not  ashamed,  to  be  the  successors  of 
Clive  and  Warren  Hastings  and  their  like",  and  so 
forth. 

In  point  of  fact,  it  would  be  difficult  to  collect  from 
Bright's  speeches  any  certain  evidence  that  he  was 
proud,  or  that  he  was  ashamed,  of  the  performances  of 


India.  79 

Clive  and  Hasting-s.  Probably  he  was  indifferent.  He 
was  little  interested  in  historical  problems,  even  in  those 
that  raise  ethical  discussion,  such  as  the  still  vexed 
question  of  the  morality  of  the  conquest  of  India.  *'I 
accept",  he  said,  "our  possession  of  India  as  a  fact. 
There  we  are;  we  do  not  know  how  to  leave  it;  and 
therefore  let  us  see  if  we  know  how  to  govern  it."  But 
it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  he  was  insensible  of  the  glory 
of  conquest,  that  he  had  no  share  whatever  in  the  pride 
that  rejoices  in  the  mere  vastness  of  the  Empire,  and 
that,  in  estimating"  its  value,  he  was  contented  with  the 
standards  of  measurement  that  are  supplied  by  the 
returns  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Further,  it  is  certain 
that  the  wars  by  which,  even  during  his  own  lifetime, 
the  Indian  Empire  was  extended  and  consolidated  filled 
him  with  mere  horror;  for  the  enthusiasts  of  peace  at 
any  price  are  not  easily  persuaded  that  peace  must 
sometimes  be  purchased  at  the  price  of  war.  ''  It  may 
be  our  unhappy  fate",  he  said,  '*to  demonstrate  the 
truth  of  the  saying,  *  There  is  no  sure  foundation  set  in 
blood'." 

Bright  was,  in  short,  an  early  and  not  a  highly- 
developed  example  of  the  order  of  politicians  who  are 
called,  in  the  most  recent  political  slang,  Little- 
Englanders.  This  admission,  which  will  be  made  with 
equal  readiness  by  those  of  his  admirers  who  share,  and 
by  those  who  dispute,  the  preconceptions  with  which  he 
approached  all  questions  of  imperial  policy,  must  of 
necessity  modify,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are  not 
ashamed  of  the  pride  which  Bright  renounced,  the 
respect  to  be  paid  to  his  deliverances  on  such  matters 
as  the  government  of  India.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
questions  at  issue  in  the  deliberations  in  which  he  took 
part  were  largely  practical  questions  of  administrative 
aims  and  methods,  which  it  was,  perhaps,  an  actual 
advantage  to  regard  with  eyes  undazzled  by  the  glamour 


8o  John  Bright. 

of  imperial  vainglory.  After  all,  the  insensibility  which 
allowed  Bright  to  mention  India  without  feeling  his 
bosom  swell  at  the  remembrance  of  Plassey,  did  not  alto- 
gether disqualify  him  from  sound  views  on  the  condition 
of  the  ryots  and  the  economic  demerits  of  the  Indian 
land  system ;  and  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  Jos  Sedleys 
of  his  own  time  was  not  in  itself  inconsistent  with  the 
most  favourable  opinion  of  the  virtues  of  Hastings. 

Like  other  British  statesmen,  Bright  could  not  help 
occasionally  falling  into  errors  such  as  could  be  avoided 
only  by  actual  experience  of  Indian  affairs.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  he  sometimes  fathered  the  complaints  of 
the  native  population  without  due  allowance  for  oriental 
duplicity  and  hyperbole.  It  is  possible  that,  being  versed 
in  the  politics  of  a  country  where  the  first  condition  of 
good  order  is  that  the  government  should  be  popular, 
and  the  second  that  it  should  be  strong,  he  did  not 
adequately  recognize  in  his  criticisms  that  in  India  it  is 
more  important  that  the  government  should  be  strong 
than  that  it  should  be  popular.  Accustomed  as  he  was 
to  declaim  against  the  failings  of  a  decadent  aristocracy, 
and  habitually  incurious  of  the  lessons  of  past  history, 
he  may  not  have  acknowledged  to  himself  that  nearly 
every  nation  that  has  become  great  has  owed  its  great- 
ness in  the  first  instance  to  the  great  qualities  of  its 
aristocracy,  and  that  it  is  in  India,  if  anywhere,  that 
what  remains  of  the  ancient  virtues  of  the  English 
oligarchy  may  still  be  rendering  service  to  humanity. 
His  hatred  of  oligarchy  predisposed  him  to  criticise  with 
severity  the  conduct  of  a  government  which  was  not 
only  oligarchical,  but  foreign.  But,  if  he  was  eager  to 
discern  the  faults  of  a  system  of  arbitrary  rule,  he,  at 
least,  did  not  proceed  to  the  absurdity  of  applying  to 
India  without  discrimination  the  commonplaces  of 
British  democratic  sentiment.  Nor  is  there  anything 
in  his  speeches  which  would  justify  us  in  imputing  to 


India.  8i 

him  the  extreme  opinion  which,  as  Mr.  Morley  tells  us, 
was  held  by  his  friend  Cobden;  who,  it  is  said,  '*  had 
always  taken  his  place  among-  those  who  cannot  see 
any  advantage  either  to  the  natives  or  their  foreig-n 
masters  in  this  vast  possession  ". 

Whatever  weight  may  be  assig'ned  to  these  admis- 
sions, the  service  that  Bright  rendered  to  g^ood  govern- 
ment in  India  cannot  fairly  be  denied;  and  nothing 
could  be  more  unjust  than  to  dismiss  him  as  a  visionary 
or  as  a  mere  grumbler.  In  the  first  place,  although 
hostile  criticism  must  often  be  unjust  criticism,  it  is 
infinitely  more  wholesome  than  mere  acquiescence. 
Bright  set  his  face  against  that  indolent  or  insincere 
optimism  of  officials,  which  easily  becomes  inveterate  if 
nobody  takes  the  trouble  to  disturb  it.  In  the  second 
place,  he  asserted  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament  to  make  independent  investigations ;  and  he 
prepared  himself  for  discussion  by  a  study,  laborious  if 
incomplete,  of  all  accessible  facts.  Herein  he  set  a 
useful  example  to  his  colleagues,  upon  whose  shoulders 
the  burden  of  imperial  responsibility  sat  too  lightl}^ 
**No  one  out  of  office  ",  he  declared  in  1853,  ^'has  paid 
so  much  attention  to  this  question  as  I  have  done."  In 
the  third  place,  he  insisted  with  salutary  iteration  that 
in  India,  as  elsewhere,  **the  test  that  indicates  the  true 
character  of  the  Government  is  to  be  found  in  the  condi- 
tion of  the  people  that  are  governed  ". 

Bright's  attention  had  been  first  directed  to  India  by 
the  requirements  of  his  own  occupation.  In  1847  he 
had  asked  for  a  committee  of  the  House  to  inquire  into 
the  culture  of  cotton  in  India.  The  Company  had  spent 
;^ioo,ooo  in  experiments,  without  improving  either  the 
quality  or  the  quantity  of  the  cotton  received  by  Lanca- 
shire from  India.  Bright  already  foresaw  the  cotton 
famine  that  nearly  ruined  his  county  and  his  industry  in 
1862.      ''  We  ought  not  to  forget  that  the  whole  of  the 

(M433)  F 


$2  John  Bright. 

cotton  grown  in  America  is  produced  by  slave  labour; 
and,  no  matter  how  long  slavery  may  have  existed, 
abolished  it  will  ultimately  be,  either  by  peaceable  or 
violent  means."  The  committee  he  asked  was  granted 
the  following  j^ear,  and,  under  his  own  chairmanship, 
collected  such  evidence  as  was  accessible  to  a  committee 
sitting  in  Westminster.  It  reported  that  the  natural 
conditions  of  soil  and  climate  were  favourable  to  the 
cultivation  of  cotton,  and  the  people  accustomed  to  the 
work.  But  there  were  four  conditions  unfavourable  to 
the  success  of  the  industry,  which,  in  Bright's  opinion, 
could  at  least  be  mitigated  by  good  government.  These 
were,  bad  roads;  insufficient  irrigation;  the  condition 
of  the  industrial  population,  who  were  so  poor  that  they 
resorted  to  the  money-lender  to  buy  seed,  and  mort- 
gaged growing  crops;  and  bad  fiscal  arrangements, 
especially  the  land  assessment,  which  was  regarded  as 
rent  paid  to  the  State,  but  differed  from  rent  in  not 
being  determined  by  the  free  competition  of  landlords 
for  tenants  and  of  tenants  for  land.  He  attributed  the 
first  two  conditions  to  the  niggardliness  of  the  Company, 
whose  expenditure  on  roads,  bridges,  canals,  and  tanks 
was  only  one -half  per  cent  of  their  revenue.  The 
condition  of  the  people,  he  declared,  could  not  be 
amended  without  the  interference  of  Parliament.  For 
these  reasons  Bright  proceeded,  in  1850,  to  ask  for  a 
Royal  Commission.  This  request,  though  supported 
both  by  Peel  and  by  Lord  George  Bentinck,  the  pro- 
tectionist leader,  was  refused  by  the  President  of  the 
Board  of  Control,  Sir  J.  C.  Hobhouse  (Lord  Broughton), 
*'  one  of  the  most  contented  and  somnolent  of  statesmen 
that  ever  filled  that  or  any  other  office  ".  Twelve  years 
later,  when  the  disaster  against  which  he  had  tried  to 
provide  had  befallen.  Bright  reproached  Broughton 
bitterly  as  **  having  neglected  in  regard  to  India  every 
great  duty  that  appertained  to  his  high  office  ". 


India.  83 

In  the  session  of  1853,  Bright  laid  his  views  on 
Indian  gfovernment  at  length  before  the  House  in  three 
speeches  before  and  during-  the  debates  on  Sir  C. 
Wood's  India  Bill.  This  Bill  made  no  substantial 
change  in  the  relations  of  the  Board  of  Control  and  the 
Directors;  and  the  reforms  proposed,  though  elaborate, 
and  intended  to  increase  the  power  of  the  Imperial 
Government  and  to  diminish  the  privileges  of  the  Com- 
pany, were,  with  one  exception,  unimportant  in  com- 
parison with  the  heroic  measures  for  which  Bright  had 
called.  This  exception  was  the  partial  abolition  of 
patronage  and  favour  in  the  civil  service  of  the  Com- 
pany, and  the  institution  of  open  competition  by 
examination  for  admission  to  Haileybury,  the  training 
school  of  Indian  civil  officers.  ''Some  of  Bright's  objec- 
tions ",  wrote  Macaulay,  after  the  first  reading,  "are 
groundless,  and  others  exaggerated;  but  the  vigour 
of  his  speech  will  do  harm.  I  will  try  whether  I  cannot 
deal  with  the  Manchester  champion."  Macaulay's 
speech  was  chiefly  occupied  with  an  animated  defence 
of  the  proposed  system  of  competitive  examination; 
and  it  is  certain  that  Bright  strangely  under-estimated 
the  value  of  this  reform,  which  struck,  not  ineffectively, 
at  the  root  of  many  of  the  evils  he  had  denounced. 

His  indictment  was  certainly  sweeping.  He  pro- 
tested that  the  Indian  Government  as  represented  in 
the  House  was  fluctuating,  uncertain,  and  incompetent; 
that  the  presidents  of  the  Board  of  Control  were  so 
frequently  changed  (four  persons  had  filled  this  office 
within  ten  months)  that  there  was  no  continuity  of 
policy  and  no  disposition  to  grapple  with  difficulties; 
that  responsibility  was  divided  and  concealed;  that  the 
division  of  authority  was  fruitful  in  procrastination; 
that  there  was  a  constant  underground  wrangling 
between  the  two  authorities;  that  Indian  opinion  was 
unanimous  in  calling  for  a  constitutional  change,  and  in 


84  John  Bright. 

complaining-  of  the  delay  and  expense  of  the  law-courts, 
the  inefficiency  and  low  character  of  the  police,  and  the 
neg-lect  of  road-making-  and  irrig-ation ;  that  the  destitu- 
tion of  the  people  was  such  as  to  demonstrate  of  itself 
a  fundamental  error  in  the  system  of  government ;  that 
the  well-meant  statute  authorizing  the  employment  of 
natives  in  offices  of  trust  was  a  dead  letter;    that  taxa- 
tion was  clumsy  and  unscientific,  and  its  burden  intoler- 
able to   a   people   destitute   of   mechanical    appliances ; 
that  the  salt-tax  was  cruel,  and  the  revenue  from  opium 
precarious;    that  the   revenue  was   squandered  on  un- 
necessary wars,  while  the  Company  had  spent  less  on 
public  works  in   the  whole   dominion   than   the   city  of 
Manchester  had   spent  on    its  water-supply;    that  the 
civil  service  was  overpaid;    that  there  was  no  security 
for   the    competence    and    character   of   the    collectors,     , 
whose  power  was  such  that  each  man  could  make  or 
mar  a  whole  district ;    that  the  best  men  were  kept  out 
of  the   Directorate    by  ignominious   canvassing;^    that  ^  ^ 
Parliament  was  unable  to  grapple  fairly  with  any  ques-    J 
tion  of  India,  or  to  deal  with   any  grievance  there  as  • 
they   could    deal    with   grievances    at   home   or  in    the 
colonies ;  finally,  that  India  was  ruled  by  a  government 
in  a  mask,  and  that  the  people  and  Parliament  of  Britain 
were  shut  out  from  all  consideration  in  regard  to  it. 

Such  was  Bright's  indictment  against  British  rule  in 
India.  Even  after  the  reconstruction  of  the  Govern- 
ment, he  reasserted  many  of  its  counts  from  time  to 
time  on  such  occasions  as  the  annual  debates  on  the 
Indian  Budget.  There  is  always  something  ungracious 
in  the  criticism  of  the  doer  by  the  talker — in  the  task  of 
one  who  points  out  faults  to  be  amended,  if  at  all,  by 
the  wisdom  and   the  skill  of  others.     But  it  is  a  task 

1  Bright  succeeded  in  carrying  a  clause  prohibiting  canvassing.  He  failed 
in  another  amendment  designed  to  bring  the  offices  of  the  two  authorities 
under  the  same  roof. 


4 


India.  85 

rendered  necessary  by  the  natural  indolence  of  humanity 
and  the  natural  conservatism  of  office;  it  is  a  task  im- 
posed by  the  spirit  of  our  constitution  upon  the  Opposi- 
tion, and,  in  a  sense.  Bright  was  always,  until  he 
became  a  minister  himself,  in  opposition. 

When  he  took  his  new  seat  in  Parliament  early  in 
1858,  he  found  his  colleag-ues  engaged  on  the  first  of  the 
three  India  Bills  of  the  session,  that  of  the  Liberal  Gov- 
ernment. But  on  February  19  Palmerston's  Ministry 
fell,  the  Manchester  School  again  striking  the  fatal  blow. 
The  attempted  assassination  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French 
by  conspirators  who  had  concocted  their  plot  in  England, 
produced  one  of  those  crises  at  which  the  admirable 
patriotism  of  the  French  nation  commonly  breaks  out  in 
the  silly  fashion  which  recalls  Chauvin  and  Bar^re. 
Before  the  gasconading  had  subsided,  the  British  Gov- 
ernment hastily  brought  in  the  Conspiracy  to  Murder 
Bill.  The  Opposition  thought,  or  affected  to  think,  that 
it  was  undignified  to  legislate  in  a  hurry  to  oblige  the 
Frenchman.  Whether  this  view  was  right  or  wrong, 
poetical  justice  was  satisfied  when  Palmerston  became 
the  victim  of  that  touchy  national  dignity  which  he  had 
loved  to  encourage.  He  was  roasted  in  his  own  brazen 
bull.  A  resolution  condemning  hasty  legislation  on  the 
criminal  law,  and  reprimanding  the  Government  for 
leaving  the  French  remonstrance  unanswered,  was  moved 
by  Bright's  old  colleague,  Milner  Gibson,  who  now  sat 
for  Ashton,  and  seconded  by  Bright  himself.  Palmerston 
did  not  fail  to  congratulate  them  on  appearing  for  the 
first  time  as  the  champions  of  the  honour  of  their  country. 
But  they  were  supported  not  only  by  the  Conservatives 
but  by  the  Peelites  and  by  Russell.  The  Government 
was  defeated,  and  Lord  Derby  became  Prime  Minister 
and  Disraeli  leader  of  the  Commons.  The  Peelites  de- 
clined, and  the  Radicals  were  not  asked,  to  join  the  new 
Ministry. 


86  John  Bright. 

The  task  of  reforming-  the  constitution  of  India  there- 
fore passed  unexpectedly  to  DisraeH.  His  first  attempt 
failed;  and  before  introducing  the  third  India  Bill,  he 
took  the  sense  of  the  House  on  a  series  of  resolutions 
laying  down  principles  on  which  legislation  was  to  pro- 
ceed. The  first  of  these  resolutions  transferred  the  gov- 
ernment from  the  Company  to  the  Crown.  The  feeling 
against  the  Company  was  so  strong  that  Mangles,  its 
mouthpiece  in  the  House,  did  not  venture  to  call  for  a 
division.  The  subsequent  resolutions  directed  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  Secretary  of  State,  or  other  responsible 
minister,  through  whom  the  Queen  should  exercise  her 
authority;  an  Indian  Council,  over  which  he  should 
preside,  and  which  would  take  the  place  of  the  old  Board 
of  Control;  and  the  transference  of  the  proprietary  rights 
of  the  Company  to  the  Crown.  The  Bill  as  passed  also 
established  a  Viceroy  to  exercise  in  India  the  imperial 
authority  over  all  the  provinces  alike. 

The  debate  on  the  resolutions  was  interrupted  by  an 
incident  which  curiously  illustrated  the  demoralization  of 
the  Liberal  party.  Lord  Canning,  the  Governor  whose 
intrepidity  and  prudence  had  saved  the  Indian  Empire  at 
the  terrible  crisis  of  the  Mutiny,  had  proceeded  to  mea- 
sures of  retribution,  which,  although  they  so  far  disap- 
pointed the  natural  vindictiveness  of  the  British  in  India 
that  he  was  nicknamed  Clemency  Canning,  exceeded 
the  limits  which  appeared  just  and  prudent  to  the  Home 
Government.  He  issued  a  proclamation  confiscating  the 
lands  of  the  Kingdom  of  Oude,  with  the  exception  of 
the  estates  of  nobles  whose  loyalty  to  the  British  rule 
was  inviolate.  Lord  Ellenborough,  the  new  President 
of  the  Board  of  Control,  at  once  sent  a  despatch  ordering 
the  withdrawal  of  the  proclamation,  and  was  so  anxious 
to  dissociate  himself  from  a  vindictive  policy  that  he 
communicated  his  despatch  to  Bright,  who  was  in  a 
manner  recognized  as  the  champion  of  the  native  Indians 


India.  87 

in  Parliament.  When  an  outcry  at  the  premature  pub- 
lication of  the  despatch  was  raised,  Ellenboroug-h  tried 
to  save  his  colleag"ues  by  resigning  office.  But  an 
attempt  was  made,  with  great  confidence  of  success,  to 
reunite  the  Liberal  majority  on  a  resolution  which,  with- 
out approving  Canning's  proclamation,  condemned  the 
peremptory  tone  of  the  despatch.  The  disunion  of  the 
Opposition  had  been  such  that  the  appearance  of  Russell's 
and  Palmerston's  names  together  on  the  list  of  guests 
at  a  dinner-party  was  hailed  as  a  momentous  political 
event.  Bright  on  this  occasion  performed  the  function, 
not  unfamiliar  to  him,  of  the  candid  friend  of  his  party. 
He  not  only  told  his  friends  that  they  would  be  disin- 
genuous if  they  blamed  the  Government  for  condemning 
a  measure  which  they  themselves  disapproved,^  but 
declared  that  he  was  better  satisfied  with  the  Conserva- 
tive Government  than  with  the  administration  it  had 
superseded,  or  than  he  was  likely  to  be  with  any  that 
the  Liberals  could  form  until  the  affairs  of  the  party 
were  in  better  trim.  After  this  speech  the  Opposition 
collapsed  with  a  suddenness  which  Disraeli,  who  was 
provokingly  cheerful  for  a  minister  with  a  minority, 
compared  to  the  instantaneous  ruin  of  an  earthquake. 
The  resolution  was  withdrawn;  and  for  the  rest  of  the 
session  the  Government  was  as  secure  as  if  supported 
by  a  loyal  majority. 

The  Bill,  under  which  India  has  since  been  governed 
without  any  necessity  for  further  constitutional  change, 
did  not  entirely  satisfy  Bright's  zeal  for  reform.  He  ob- 
jected to  the  Council,  which,  he  predicted,  would  within 
five  years  be  abolished  as  either  obstructive  or  as  having 
fallen  into  contempt.  The  constitution  of  the  Home 
Government  should   be  simple,  to  correspond  with  the 

^  Bright,  however,  paid  a  tribute  to  the  humanity  and  justice  of  Canning. 
The  intention  and  effect  of  the  proclamation  seem  to  have  been  misunder- 
stood by  all  parties. 


88  John  Bright. 

simplicity  of  its  function  of  control  rather  than  legislation. 
He  was  not  satisfied  that  the  new  constitution,  which  still 
involved  perpetual  reference  from  Calcutta  to  Westmin- 
ster, would  be  free  from  the  "circumlocution,  delay,  and 
neglect"  which  had  distinguished  the  old  dual  system. 
Procrastination,  he  said  a  few  years  later,  was  the  very 
nature  of  the  Calcutta  Government.  But  his  most  serious 
objection  was  taken  to  the  office  of  Viceroy,  and  to  the 
expectation  which  such  an  institution  implied,  that  the 
provinces  of  India  could  be  "  bound  up  and  consolidated 
into  one  compact  and  enduring  empire".  "You  lay 
duties  on  the  Governor-general  which  are  utterly  beyond 
the  mental  and  bodily  strength  of  any  man  who  ever 
existed."  How  could  one  man  grasp  the  govern- 
ment of  "  a  country  of.  twenty  nations  speaking  twenty 
languages"?  We  could  not  expect  a  succession  of 
Alexanders.  "  No  doubt  there  have  been  men  strong  in 
arm  and  in  head  and  of  stern  resolution  who  have  kept 
great  empires  together  during  their  lives ;  but  as  soon  as 
they  went  the  way  of  all  flesh,  and  descended  like  the 
meanest  of  their  subjects  to  the  tomb,  the  provinces  they 
had  ruled  were  divided  Into  several  states,  and  their 
great  empires  vanished."  Bright  was  in  favour  of 
further  decentralization.  His  own  plan  was  that  "the 
country  should  be  divided  into  five  or  six  separate,  and, 
as  regards  each  other,  independent,  presidencies  of  equal 
rank,  with  a  governor  and  council  in  each,  and  each 
government  corresponding  with,  and  dependent  upon, 
and  responsible  to,  a  secretary  of  state  in  this  country  ". 
Ten  years  later  Bright  declined  Mr.  Gladstone's  off"er 
to  him  of  the  Indian  Secretaryship  of  State.  Probably  he 
refused  this  opportunity,  not  so  much  because  he  had 
lost  his  sense  of  the  deficiencies  of  Indian  administration 
or  his  faith  in  his  methods  of  reform, — for  he  very  rarely 
admitted  any  change  of  opinion, — as  because  he  had  not 
enough   confidence    in   his    own   ability   to   execute    his 


-V 


Parliamentary  Reform.  89 

designs.  He  was  at  that  time  fifty-seven  years  of  age, 
and  wearied  by  the  long  struggle  for  Reform;  his  second 
illness  was  imminent;  and  in  him  the  energy  of  youth 
was  abated  somewhat  early  in  life.  During  his  last 
twenty  years  he  was  perforce  a  comparatively  idle  man. 
It  is  probable  that  Bright's  vigorous  and  prolonged 
animadversions  on  Indian  government  helped  to  inspire 
the  internal  reforms  by  which  the  viceroyalty  of  Lord 
Ripon  ( 1 880-1 884)  was  distinguished.  Bright  at  any 
rate  regarded  those  reforms  with  satisfaction.  He  wrote 
to  an  Indian  correspondent:  "The  principles  which  have 
distinguished  the  administration  of  Lord  Ripon  seem  to 
me  to  be  those  which  promise  to  be  beneficial  to  you  and 
creditable  to  us".  Intelligent  and  liberal  opinion  is  still 
far  from  unanimous  in  approval  of  the  policy  of  popular 
concession  initiated  by  Lord  Ripon.  If  it  should  be 
finally  condemned,  much  of  Bright's  fault-finding,  and 
some  of  his  suggestions,  will  share  the  condemnation. 
But  he  will  always  deserve  applause  as  the  first  private 
member  of  Parliament  since  the  days  of  Burke  who  set 
himself  with  diligence  and  ardour  to  investigate  and 
redress  the  wrongs  of  the  voiceless  millions  of  India. 


Chapter  V. 
Parliamentary  Reform. 

In  October,  1858,  at  the  first  meeting  at  which  he 
addressed  his  Birmingham  constituents,  Bright  set  afoot 
the  popular  movement  for  Reform.  Ten  years  had 
elapsed  since  he  and  Hume  first  propounded  their 
scheme  to  the  House  of  Commons;  and  he  was  now 
able  to  say  that  already  four  ministries — those  of  Rus- 
sell, Aberdeen,  Palmerston,  and  Derby — had  pledged 
themselves  to   Reform.     The  first  steps  taken  by  the 


go  John  Bright. 

Radicals  in  the  House  of  Commons  have  already  been 
recounted.  It  is  now  necessary  to  resume  the  history 
of  the  movement  from  that  point  to  the  autumn  of  1858. 

The  scheme  of  the  Chartists  had  included  five  heads 
of  Parliamentary  Reform — universal  suffrage,  the  ballot, 
annual  parliaments,  the  abolition  of  the  property  qualifi- 
cation for  membership,  and  the  payment  of  members. 
In  1848  most  Radicals  had  declared  for  four  of  these 
five  points,  though  they  substituted  household  for  man- 
hood suffrage,  and  triennial  for  annual  parliaments. 
The  payment  of  members  was  at  no  time  admitted  by 
Bright  into  his  scheme.  He  rarely  or  never  alluded  to 
that  proposal  in  his  Reform  speeches.  His  judgment 
upon  it  is  given  in  the  following  passage  of  a  much 
later  speech.  **  I  am  satisfied  that  the  results  of  pay- 
ment of  members,  in  some  countries  at  least,  are  highly 
unsatisfactory.  The  condition  of  things  in  the  United 
States  is  deplorable.  I  think  that  in  any  country  it 
introduces  into  the  list  of  candidates  men  who  are 
willing  to  make  the  occupation  of  party  life  a  trade 
from  which  they  may  get  a  comfortable  income." 

Bright  had  advocated  triennial  parliaments  for  two 
reasons.  He  thought  it  desirable  to  counterbalance  by 
a  more  immediate  fear  of  the  constituencies  the  influ- 
ence which  the  Treasury  could  exercise  over  members 
of  Parliament  by  means  of  its  patronage.  In  the  second 
place,  it  appeared  to  him  mischievous  that  legislators 
should  be  fettered  in  judgment  by  those  specific  pledges 
which  constituencies  were  tempted  to  exact  from  repre- 
sentatives elected  for  so  long  a  period  as  seven  years. 
But  on  this  point  his  opinion  suffered  some  change; 
and  by  1858  it  had  disappeared  from  his  scheme  of 
Reform. 

Faith  in  the  Ballot  was  part  of  Bright's  inheritance 
from  the  older  school  of  Radicals.  Long  before  he 
entered  political  life  Grote  and  others  had  called  for  this 


Parliamentary  Reform.  91 

method  of  protecting  the  independence  of  voters,  and 
had  convinced  even  so  sound  a  partisan  of  Whig"  finaUty 
as  Macaulay.  It  may  appear  surprising-  that  a  man  so 
eminently  outspoken  and  veracious  as  Bright  should 
have  been  enamoured  of  a  device  which  must  either  be 
inefficient  or  succeed  only  by  the  aid  of  habitual  false- 
hood. The  example  of  America  as  well  as  the  precepts 
of  the  philosophical  Radicals  may  have  weighed  with 
him.  For  whatever  reason,  he  was  uniformly  and  un- 
doubtingly  persistent  in  asking  that  the  voter  should 
''give  his  vote  by  a  machinery  which  should  protect 
him  against  the  influence  of  his  landlord,  his  creditor, 
and  his  customers  ".  He  declared  that,  if  the  workmen 
of  the  towns  were  admitted  to  the  franchise,  they  too 
must  be  protected  against  the  influence  of  their  em- 
ployers. His  reply  to  Palmerston,  who  had  argued 
that  a  man's  morality  would  be  injured  if  he  were  taught 
to  violate  an  open  promise  by  a  secret  vote,  gives  his 
judgment  on  the  ethical  question.  ' '  The  noble  Lord 
appears  not  to  be  aware  of  the  fact  that  if  a  man  is 
made  to  promise  contrary  to  his  conscience  he  by  that 
promise  is  equally  guilty  of  immorality;  and  if  he  votes 
in  accordance  with  his  promise  he  doubly  violates  the 
rule  which  the  noble  Lord  professes  to  support." 

Bright  was  also  at  all  times  consistent  in  declaring 
that  he  was  not  afraid  of  the  widest  possible  extension 
of  the  suffrage,  though  it  is  certain  that  he  would  have 
been  content,  and  probable  that  he  would  have  been 
better  pleased,  to  give  first  a  fair  trial  to  a  suffrage  less 
wide  than  household  suffrage.  But  his  speeches  show 
that  in  1858  he  assigned  the  greater  importance  to  re- 
distribution; and  that  his  main  purpose  was  to  secure 
for  the  large  manufacturing  and  commercial  towns,  in 
which  the  principles  of  public  action  to  which  he  was 
devoted  had  found  widest  acceptance,  a  preponderant 
influence  in  the  control  of  the  national  policy.      It  must 


92  John  Bright. 

be  added  that'  at  this  period  he  never  spoke  on  Reform 
without  indicating  his  confidence  that  that  influence 
when  acquired  would  be  used  in  favour  of  a  peaceful 
and  unenterprising  foreign  policy,  and  of  a  great  reduc- 
tion in  the  national  expenditure.  No  self-governed 
people,  he  declared,  had  ever  wasted,  or  would  ever 
waste,  so  much  of  the  national  wealth  as  had  been 
squandered  by  the  class  that  since  the  Revolution  had 
governed  England,  and  had  made  unnecessary  wars, 
created  unnecessary  offices,  and  contracted  the  national 
debt. 

As  early  as  1848  Russell  had  cautiously  admitted  that 
'*it  would  soon  be  advisable  to  consider  the  extension 
of  the  franchise".  In  1849  he  raised  the  question  of 
introducing  a  new  Reform  Bill  in  the  Cabinets.  In 
1851  he  promised  a  Bill.  *'But,"  said  Bright,  ''looking 
at  the  speeches  of  the  noble  Lord  on  this  question,  and 
leaving  out  of  view  his  antecedents  twenty  years  ago, 
there  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  he  is  about  to  sub- 
mit such  a  Reform  Bill  as  would  excite  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  country." 

In  the  session  of  1852  the  first  of  many  abortive 
Reform  Bills  was  introduced  by  Russell.  The  Act  of 
1832,  while  preserving-  some  of  the  ancient  franchises 
conferred  on  different  boroughs  according  to  varying 
qualifications,  established  in  general  a  ;£^io  occupation 
franchise  in  boroughs,  and  in  counties  a  ;^5o  occupa- 
tion, and  a  forty-shilling  freehold,  franchise.  Russell's 
Bill  proposed  to  reduce  the  rated  value  qualifying  an 
occupier  for  a  vote  from  ;^5o  to  ;^20  in  counties,  and 
from  ;^io  to  £^  in  boroughs.  The  new  qualification 
in  the  boroughs  would  have  admitted  working  men 
paying  as  low  a  rent  as  half  a  crown  a  week,  and 
was  therefore  by  no  means  an  illiberal  concession.  The 
Bill  also  off'ered  the  franchise  to  all  persons  both  in 
boroughs  and  counties  paying  forty  shillings  in  direct 


Parliamentary  Reform.  93 

taxation.  This  qualification  would  have  admitted  a 
larg^e  number  of  persons  resident  in  counties,  who  were 
neglected  in  the  Act  of  1867,  and  waited  for  their 
citizenship  until  1884.  Russell  also  proposed  to  extend 
the  boundaries  of  sixty-seven  small  boroughs  for  the 
purpose  of  parliamentary  elections.  Before  this  Bill 
came  up  for  a  second  reading  the  Ministry  had  fallen. 
Bright  had  given  it  the  coldest  of  welcomes.  He 
thought  that  the  county  franchise  should  be  further 
reduced,  and  that,  without  some  further  measure  of 
redistribution,  the  House  would  still  continue  to  mis- 
represent the  balance  of  opinion  in  the  country. 

In  the  session  of  1854  Russell  brought  in  the  Reform 
Bill  of  the  Coalition  Ministry.  This  Bill  proposed  an 
occupation  franchise  of  ;^io  in  counties  and  boroughs 
alike,  with  a  ;^6  qualification  for  dwelling-houses  in 
boroughs  only.  It  repeated  the  taxation  franchise  of 
the  former  Bill,  and  further  proposed  to  give  votes  to 
graduates,  to  every  man  who  had  an  income  of  £100 
not  paid  weekly,  or  who  enjoyed  an  income  of  ;£'io 
from  Bank  Stock  or  East  India  Stock,  or  possessed 
£S^  deposited  for  three  years  in  a  savings-bank.  The 
redistribution  clauses  took  sixty-two  seats  away  from 
fifty-two  small  boroughs ;  and  bestowed  some  of  these 
upon  the  large  boroughs,  but  most  of  them  upon  the 
more  populous  county  divisions.  The  Bill  was  also 
remarkable  for  the  first  appearance  of  the  minority  vote. 
In  the  constituencies  which  received  three  members  each 
under  the  redistribution  each  elector  was  to  vote  for  two 
candidates  only. 

The  Bill  was  not  popular;  and  little  regret  was  ex- 
hibited when  it  was  withdrawn  in  consequence  of  the 
Crimean  war.  Bright  explained  why  it  had  been  re- 
ceived without  enthusiasm.  **The  noble  Lord  seems 
to  have  forgotten  how  he  carried  his  Reform  Bill  in 
1832.     That  measure  was  carried  by  the  heartfelt  re- 


94  John  Bright. 

sponse  from  all  the  towns  of  the  United  Kingdom.  But 
in  the  present  Bill  I  am  unable  to  discover  what  should 
induce  the  towns  of  England  to  support  it.  The  great 
towns  are  not  likely  to  be  enthusiastic  in  favour  of  a 
measure  which  gives  members  to  counties  already  over- 
represented,  and  overlooks  the  claims  of  the  borough 
constituencies." 

During  the  recess  between  the  sessions  of  1858  and 
1859,  Bright  addressed  great  popular  meetings  at  Man- 
chester, Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  Bradford,  and  other  towns, 
as  well  as  at  Birmingham.  These  meetings  constituted 
an  event  the  importance  of  which  could  not  be  gainsaid. 
It  was  impossible  that  they  should  not  recall  to  the  minds 
of  men  the  old  days  of  the  League,  the  appeal  of  the 
Leaguers  from  the  politicians  to  the  population,  and 
their  triumph  over  the  moderation  of  the  compromising 
Whigs.  Bright  himself  informed  the  House  of  Com- 
mons next  session  that  the  meetings  had  "exceeded  in 
numbers  and  in  influence  almost  every  meeting  that  was 
held  by  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League ".  The  statesmen 
of  the  Liberal  party  were  still  scarcely  less  disinclined 
to  reform  than  their  Conservative  competitors.  Both 
parties  regarded  reform  as  an  inevitable  event  of  the 
future;  both  were  anxious  not  to  anticipate  the  neces- 
sity, and  angry  with  Bright  for  opening  the  throttle- 
valve  while  they  were  trying  to  screw  down  the  break; 
yet  both  were  eager  to  intercept  the  credit  of  being  the 
first  to  yield  to  the  popular  will  as  soon  as  it  should 
become  obviously  irresistible.  The  Bills  of  1859  and 
i860,  which  will  shortly  be  considered,  are  to  be  regarded 
merely  as  finessing  moves  in  the  party  game,  or,  at  the 
best,  as  mere  hallons  d'essai.  But  the  Liberals  of  the 
great  towns,  tired  of  the  tame  domestic  policy  of  the 
past  ten  years,  as  well  as  the  unenfranchised  working 
men,  eagerly  responded  to  Bright's  spirited  appeals. 
Among  those  who  joined  him  at  this  time  were  J.  A. 


Parliamentary  Reform.  95 

Roebuck  of  Sheffield,  Duncan  Maclaren  of  Edinburgh, 
Samuel  Morley  of  Nottingham,  W.  E.  Forster  of  Brad- 
ford, and  many  other  leaders  of  the  Liberal  opinion  of 
the  great  provincial  cities.  **  Bright's  agitation  will 
bear  fruit",  wrote  Clough,  in  January,  1859.  ''He  is 
scoffed  at  in  the  metropolitan  papers  and  at  all  clubs; 
but  his  hold  on  the  country  is  such  as  no  M.P.  whatever, 
except  himself,  possesses." 

Bright's  popular  oratory  still  retained  all  the  fire  and 
indignation  of  his  speeches  against  the  Corn  Law,  while 
it  had  improved  vastly  in  the  higher  qualities  of  elo- 
quence. He  was  now  the  greatest  living  master  of 
demagogic  rhetoric,  if  not  indeed  the  greatest  that 
England  had  ever  known.  If  the  end  of  such  oratory 
is  popular  enthusiasm  and  determination,  what  could 
be  more  effective  than  the  closing  sentences  of  his  Bir- 
mingham speech?  "  Shall  we  then,  I  ask  you,  even  for 
a  moment,  be  hopeless  of  our  great  cause?  I  feel  almost 
ashamed  even  to  argue  it  to  such  a  meeting  as  this. 
I  call  to  mind  where  I  am,  and  who  are  those  I  see 
before  me.  Am  I  not  in  the  town  of  Birmingham, 
England's  central  capital,  and  do  not  these  eyes  look 
upon  the  sons  of  those  who  not  thirty  years  ago  shook 
the  fabric  of  privilege  to  its  base?  Not  a  few  of  the 
strong  men  of  that  time  are  now  white  with  age.  They 
approach  the  confines  of  their  mortal  day.  Its  evening 
is  cheered  with  the  remembrance  of  that  great  contest, 
and  they  rejoice  in  the  freedom  they  have  won.  Shall 
their  sons  be  less  noble  than  they?  Shall  the  fire  which 
they  kindled  be  extinguished  with  you?  I  see  your 
answer  in  every  face.  You  are  resolved  that  the  legacy 
which  they  bequeathed  to  you  you  will  hand  down  in 
an  accumulated  wealth  of  freedom  to  your  children. 
As  for  me,  my  voice  is  feeble.  I  feel  now  sensibly  and 
painfully  that  I  am  not  what  I  was.  I  speak  with 
diminished  fire,   I  act  with  a  lessened  force;    but  as  I 


96  John  Bright. 

am,  my  countrymen  and  my  constituents,  I  will,  if  you 
will  let  me,  be  found  in  your  ranks  in  the  impending* 
struggle." 

During  the  first  three  or  four  years  of  the  agitation 
Bright's  chief  topic  was  the  conservatism  and  wasteful- 
ness of  the  class  which  controlled  through  the  unreformed 
House  of  Commons  the  policy  of  the  country.  ''A 
House  of  Commons  so  formed  becomes  for  the  most 
part  an  organ  of  the  great  territorial  interests  of  the 
country.  It  hates  changes  with  an  animosity  that 
nothing  can  assuage.  It  hates  economy.  It  hates 
equality  of  taxation."  **  All  we  have  done  of  late  years 
has  been  to  vote  with  a  listless  apathy  millions  of  money 
for  which  you  have  toiled."  ''The  House  of  Commons 
presents  itself  to  us  as  a  body  caring,  I  fear,  very  little 
for  the  great  internal  interests  of  the  country,  and  reck- 
less— I  will  not  hesitate  to  say  profligate — in  the  expen- 
diture of  public  money."  Against  the  fears  of  those 
who  dreaded  the  evil  possibilities  of  democracy  he  con- 
stantly appealed  to  the  example  of  the  United  States. 
"  In  America  there  is  a  franchise  as  wide  as  that  I  have 
proposed.  Yet  in  America  we  find  law,  order,  and  pro- 
perty secure.  Are  we  less  educated,  are  we  less  indus- 
trious, are  we  less  moral,  are  we  less  subject  to  the  law, 
are  we  less  disposed  to  submit  to  all  the  just  require- 
ments of  the  Government?" 

At  a  conference  of  reformers  held  in  the  Guildhall  in 
November,  1858,  Bright  was  entrusted  with  a  commission 
to  prepare  a  Bill.  His  scheme  was  a  £^  rental  or  ;^3 
rating  qualification  in  the  boroughs,  a  ;£"io  franchise  in 
the  counties,  the  ballot,  and  a  redistribution  by  which 
130  seats  were  to  be  taken  from  the  small  towns.  Of 
these  seats  eighteen  only  were  given  to  counties,  and 
the  rest  to  the  large  towns,  forty  of  which  were  to  return 
three,  four,  or  six  members  each. 

Early  in  the  session  of  1859  Disraeli  introduced  the 


Parliamentary  Reform.  97 

promised  Reform  Bill  of  the  Conservative  Government. 
He  clearly  disting-uished  his  purpose  from  that  of  Brig-ht. 
He  declared  himself  one  of  those  reformers  whose  aim 
was  to  "  adapt  the  settlement  of  1832  to  the  England 
of  1859  " ;  and  repudiated  sympathy  with  the  new  school, 
which  thought  that  "  the;  chief,  if  not  the  sole  object  of 
representation  was  to  realize  the  opinion  of  the  numerical 
majority  of  the  country".  Bright  had  anticipated  that 
the  Bill  would  be  like  a  Spanish  feast — ''a  very  little 
meat  and  a  great  deal  of  tablecloth  "  ;  and,  whatever  its 
merits,  it  proposed  no  satisfaction  to  the  hope  of  enfran- 
chisement with  which  Bright  had  inspired  the  working- 
classes.  The  county  franchise  was  to  be  assimilated  to 
that  of  the  boroughs,  but  no  reduction  of  the  qualifying* 
value  in  boroughs  was  offered.  The  people,  said  Bright, 
who  were  most  eager  for  enfranchisement  were  to  be 
disappointed.  **  Every  one  of  these  men,  working,  toil- 
ing, serving,  paying  taxes,  and  fulfilling  all  the  duties 
of  citizenship,  will  see  that,  as  he  was  left  an  outcast 
by  the  Bill  of  1832,  he  must  remain  an  outcast  by  the 
Bill  of  1859." 

In  place  of  a  general  enfranchisement  of  the  workmen, 
Disraeli  proposed  to  bestow  the  vote  as  a  special  reward 
for  thrift  or  education.  He  offered  it  to  clergymen  and 
ministers  of  religion,  to  certificated  schoolmasters,  to 
solicitors,  barristers,  and  proctors,  to  qualified  medical 
men,  to  pensioners,  to  persons  possessed  of  £10  a  year 
from  funded  property,  and  to  every  man  who  had  ;^6o 
in  the  savings-bank.  Some  of  these  qualifications  were 
borrowed  from  Russell's  Bill.  But,  so  far  as  the  Reform 
party  in  the  country  was  concerned.  Bright  damned  them 
for  ever  by  a  single  contemptuous  epithet.  He  called 
them  the  fancy  franchises.  No  nickname  was  ever  more 
successful.  Disraeli,  who  was  himself  our  greatest  artist 
of  such  phrases,  was  naturally  irritated  by  its  success. 

''Alliteration",  he  said,  "tickles  the  ear,  and  is  a  very 
( M  433 )  G 


gS  John  Bright. 

popular  form  of  language  among  savages.  It  is,  I 
believe,  the  characteristic  of  rude  and  barbarous  poetry. 
But  it  is  not  an  argument  in  legislation."  Whatever  the 
value  of  the  argument,  it  sufficed  to  convince  the  savages. 

Disraeli's  plan  of  redistribution  was  equally  cautious. 
He  condemned  ''those  rattling  schemes  of  disenfran- 
chisement  with  which  we  have  been  favoured  during 
the  autumn  ".  He  took  one  seat  from  each  of  fifteen 
towns  returning  two  members,  and  allotted  eight  of  these 
seats  to  counties  and  seven  to  new  boroughs. 

The  part  of  Disraeli's  scheme  selected  for  the  first 
combat  by  the  Opposition  was  rather  oddly  chosen. 
During  the  free-trade  agitation  many  Free-traders  had, 
on  Cobden's  advice,  obtained  county  votes  by  the  pur- 
chase of  small  freeholds  in  towns.  Disraeli  now  pro- 
posed that  a  man  who  held  a  freehold  in  the  town  in 
which  he  lived  should  vote  in  respect  of  that  property 
for  the  borough  instead  of  the  county.  The  irony  of 
destiny  has  since  decreed  that  the  Liberal  party  should 
have  the  greater  cause  to  complain  of  that  swamping  of 
rural  opinion  by  urban  freeholders  which  Cobden  encour- 
aged, and  for  which  Disraeli  tried  to  find  a  remedy. 
But  at  the  moment  the  proposal  meant  a  transference 
of  Liberal  votes  from  the  counties,  where  they  might 
turn  the  scale,  to  the  towns,  where  they  were  not 
needed.  Russell  protested  successfully  against  the 
change.  The  Government  was  defeated  on  this  issue, 
and  appealed  to  the  country.  The  dissolution  deprived 
Bright  of  the  opportunity  of  bringing  in  his  own  Bill. 

As  soon  as  Parliament  reassembled  Lord  Hartington 
moved  a  resolution  of  no  confidence  in  the  Conservative 
Government.  Bright  spoke  and  voted  for  this  resolu- 
tion; but  he  was  careful  to  withhold  any  unqualified 
promise  of  support  to  the  coming  Liberal  Ministry.  '*  I 
wish  to  pursue  the  same  course  that  I  have  pursued  in 
the  past — a  course  of  vigilance  in  regard  to  the  Govern- 


Parliamentary  Reform.  99 

ment."  He  gave  two  reasons  for  his  desire  to  see  a 
change  of  Government.  The  war  between  France  and 
Austria  had  led  the  Government  to  strengthen  the  na- 
tional defences;  and  Bright,  always  jealous  of  such 
expenditure,  interpreted  it  now  as  conveying  a  menace 
to  France.  His  second  reason  was  that  he  had  more 
confidence  in  the  reforming  intentions  of  Russell  than  in 
those  of  Disraeli.  Disraeli  had  ^*  pretended  to  pay  a 
portion  of  the  debt  that  had  been  long  due  to  the  people, 
but  he  had  offered  them  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Elegance". 
Russell  had  during  the  election  given  assurances  which, 
though  they  proved  to  be  worthless,  were  for  the  moment 
accepted  as  honest  and  satisfactory  by  the  Radicals. 
'Mt  will  be  the  duty  of  the  new  Government",  said 
Bright,  ^*to  bring  in  at  an  early  period  a  measure  of 
reform  very  different  from  the  measure  of  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer." 

The  Derby  Government  being  defeated  by  a  narrow 
majority,  Palmerston  became  Prime  Minister  and  Russell 
Foreign  Secretary.  Mr.  Gladstone,  although  he  had 
voted  with  the  Conservative  Ministry  in  both  the  fatal 
divisions,  took  office  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
and  from  this  date  may  be  regarded  as  a  member  of  the 
Liberal  party.  The  Peelite  group  had  disappeared  by 
absorption.  Palmerston  was  known  to  be  disinclined  to 
reform,  but  Russell's  pledges  had  been  so  precise  that 
the  reformers  looked  forward  with  a  good  hope  to  the 
coming  session. 

During  the  recess,  and  in  the  temporary  suspense  of 
the  agitation  for  reform.  Bright  turned  his  attention  to 
finance.  The  brilliant  series  of  budgets  by  which  Mr. 
Gladstone  carried  to  its  conclusion  the  work  begun  by 
Peel,  and  satisfied  the  free-trade  theory  of  the  Man- 
chester School,  was  still  incomplete;  and  Financial 
Reform  Associations  were  calling  for  the  removal  of  the 
duties  on  between  three  and  four  hundred  articles  of  im- 


loo  John  Bright. 

port.  Brlght's  zeal  was  not  satisfied  even  by  this  hope. 
He  secured  the  approval  of  the  financial  reformers  of 
Liverpool  for  a  remarkable  scheme,  the  audacious  sim- 
plicity of  which  is  so  characteristic  of  his  mind  that, 
thoug-h  it  might  claim  no  place  in  the  history  of  the 
financial  policy  of  the  country,  it  cannot  be  omitted 
from  any  record  of  the  opinions  of  its  author.  He  pro- 
posed in  brief  to  dispense  altogether  with  indirect  taxa- 
tion.^ He  asserted  the  "simple  principle  of  justice  that 
taxes  should  be  levied  from  the  people  in  proportion  to 
the  property  which  every  man  possessed  by  reason  of 
the  security  which  Government  gave  him".  The  estab- 
lished methods  of  taxation  he  regarded  as  "essentially 
mean  and  singularly  cruel ".  All  taxation  ought  to  be 
direct.  He  proposed  also  to  abolish  the  existing  income- 
tax.  The  deficiency  of  twenty-seven  millions  incurred 
by  these  remissions  he  proposed  to  meet  partly  by 
retrenchment,  but  chiefly  by  a  tax  of  eight  shillings  per 
cent  on  all  property,  except  that  of  persons  whose  pos- 
sessions were  worth  less  than  ;^ioo.  This  was  equiva- 
lent, if  the  annual  yield  of  the  property  taxed  were  taken 
as  five  per  cent,  to  a  tax  of  eight  per  cent  on  all  incomes 
derived  from  property,  the  earnings  of  work  of  any  sort 
being  left  untaxed. 

The  poor  man's  luxuries  still  continue  to  yield  revenue 
to  the  State;  but  within  a  few  months  of  this  speech, 
after  the  great  budget  of  i860.  Bright  was  able  to  say 
with  exultation  that  "  four  hundred  obstacles  to  the  free 
development  of  our  industry  have  been  struck  out  of  the 
pages  of  our  statute-book".  Some  years  later  his  own 
suggestion  made  a  partial  reappearance  in  the  form  of  a 
proposal  for  "a  free  breakfast-table",  which  supplied  an 
attractive  motto  for  the  decoration  of  political  assembly 
rooms. 

1  This  proposal  had  already  been  made  by  the  Chartists    notably  by 
Lovett  in  1848. 


Parliamentary  Reform.  loi 

The  Reform  Bill  which  Russell  introduced  in  i86o  in 
fulfilment  of  his  election  pledges  proposed  a  £10  quali- 
fication for  the  counties,  a  £,6  qualification  for  the 
boroughs,  and  a  meagre  scheme  of  redistribution,  by 
which  twenty-five  seats  taken  from  the  smaller  boroughs 
were  allotted,  fifteen  to  counties,  nine  to  boroughs,  and 
one  to  the  University  of  London.  Four  boroughs  were 
to  have  three  members  each,  but  one  of  the  three  was 
to  represent  the  minority. 

Bright  was  willing  to  accept  the  compromise  so  far  as 
the  voting  qualification  was  concerned;  but,  "with  the 
candid  audacity",  said  Disraeli,  ''which  in  his  case 
greatly  neutralizes  the  pernicious  opinions  he  expresses, 
and  the  dangerous  courses  he  pursues  ",  he  announced 
that  he  would  continue  the  agitation  for  the  ballot,  and 
for  a  more  generous  measure  of  redistribution.  Disraeli 
did  not  divide  the  House  on  the  second  reading,  but  he 
probably  did  no  violence  to  the  prevalent  opinion  when 
he  described  the  measure  as  ''unnecessary,  uncalled-for, 
and  mischievous".  Greville,  who  knew  all  the  Whigs, 
wrote:  "It  is  impossible  to  meet  with  any  man  who  ap- 
proves of  this  Bill,  and  who  does  not  abhor  the  idea  of 
any  reform ".  Such,  no  doubt,  was  the  view  of  the 
clubs. 

The  first  important  division  showed  so  small  a  majo- 
rity for  the  Bill  that  Russell  withdrew  it  before  the  first 
clause  had  passed  committee.  To  ask  the  House  of 
Commons  to  reform  its  own  constitution  is  at  any  time 
to  invite  some  of  its  members  to  commit  political  suicide; 
and,  notwithstanding  the  success  of  Bright's  agitation 
in  the  great  provincial  towns,  there  was  as  yet  no  such 
popular  outcry  as  had  forced  the  reform  of  1832  upon 
Parliament.  Yet  Bright  was  justified  in  warning  his 
colleagues  that  they  were  misreading  the  signs  of  the 
times.  "There  is  no  turbulence",  he  said.  "The  pas- 
sion of   1832   is  past.     There  is  no  howling  wind  and 


X 


I02  John  Bright. 

no  imminent  convulsion,  but  there  is  the  steady,  the 
ever-g^rowing-,  the  irresistible  tide  of  public  opinion. 
There  is  the  consciousness  among  millions  of  your 
countrymen  that  Parliament  does  not  adequately  repre- 
sent them  and  is  not  just  to  them."  Six  years  later  he 
elaborated  this  simile  with  singularly  fine  effect.  "  You 
have  stood  on  the  sea-shore  in  an  hour  of  quiet  and  of 
calm,  when  no  tempest  drives  the  waves,  and  the  wind 
passes  as  it  were  but  with  a  whisper;  and  yet  you  see 
the  tide  coming-  on,  urged  as  it  were  by  some  latent  and 
mysterious  power.  You  see  the  loiterers  on  the  beach 
driven  from  point  to  point  by  the  advancing  waves,  and 
by  and  by  and  finally  the  whole  vast  basin  of  the  ocean 
seems  filled  to  the  very  brim.  There  is  no  violence; 
there  is  not  even  menace  of  force;  but  we  all  feel  that 
opinion  is  g-rowing  and  that  the  tide  is  coming-  on.  We 
feel  that  those  who  oppose — ignorant  some  of  them  may 
be,  insolent  others  may  be — are  being-  gradually  driven 
back,  and  by  and  by  barriers  will  be  thrown  down, 
and  privilege  and  monopoly  will  be  swept  away.  The 
people  will  be  enfranchised,  and  the  measure  of  their 
freedom  will  be  full." 

For  the  moment,  however,  public  attention  was  occu- 
pied by  other  matters.  The  Free-traders  were  watching 
with  interest  Cobden's  great  enterprise  of  the  French 
Commercial  Treaty.  The  credit  of  this  achievement  is 
to  be  divided  between  Cobden  and  Mr.  Gladstone.  But 
the  germ  of  the  project  was  a  suggestion  derived  by 
Michel  Chevalier  from,  a  speech  of  Bright's.  Politicians 
were  also  interested  less  in  reform  than  in  the  great 
Free-trade  Budget  of  the  year,  and  in  those  ambitious 
projects  of  Louis  Napoleon  which  caused  the  deplorable 
Invasion  Panic. 

This  disquietude  gave  occasion  for  another  assertion 
by  Bright  of  his  principle  of  non-intervention.  On 
March  4,    i860.    Lord   Malmesbury  wrote  in  his  diary 


Parliamentary  Reform.  103 

that  he  had  heard  Bright  deliver  **  the  most  un-English 
speech  he  had  ever  heard  in  his  life  ".  It  is  well  known 
that  Bright's  sentiments  were  very  often  reproached  as 
un-English.  The  reader  may  perhaps  be  assisted  in 
assigning  a  meaning  to  this  indeterminate  epithet  as 
applied  to  Bright,  by  a  citation  of  those  passages  of  this 
speech  which  gave  gravest  offence.  The  speech  pro- 
voked an  immediate  and  vivacious  rebuke  from  the 
present  Duke  of  Rutland.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  son 
of  the  statesman,  had  interrogated  ministers  on  the 
annexation  of  Savoy  by  the  Frenchman,  and,  according 
to  a  custom  then  permitted,  had  introduced  his  question 
with  remarks  of  his  own  intended  for  the  guidance  of 
the  Government.  Before  the  question  was  answered 
Bright  interposed  a  protest  against  discussing  such  a 
question  in  Parliament  at  aU.  *'What  does  the  hon. 
baronet  propose  to  do?  We  are  not  the  Parliament  of 
France — we  are  not  the  Parliament  of  Savoy — we  are 
not  the  Parliament  of  Europe — but  we  are  the  Parlia- 
ment of  England.  Unless  it  can  be  shown  that  there  is 
any  direct  and  obvious  interest  which  this  country  has 
in  any  of  the  foreign  questions  which  are  constantly 
brought  before  us,  what  an  absurd  spectacle  do  we  offer 
to  Europe  with  all  these  repeated  discussions!"  He 
believed  that  France  would  not  gain,  nor  Savoy  suffer, 
by  the  annexation;  but  he  added:  ''Perish  Savoy, 
rather  than  that  we  the  representatives  of  the  people 
of  England  should  involve  the  Government  of  the  coun- 
try with  the  people  and  Government  of  France  in  a 
matter  in  which  we  have  really  no  interest  whatever. 
Have  we  not  for  generations  past  endeavoured  to  settle 
the  map  of  Europe?  Have  we  not,  as  if  it  were  not 
worth  a  thought,  spent  blood  and  treasure  for  the  pur- 
pose of  fixing  certain  boundaries,  and  declaring  that 
certain  provinces  and  kingdoms  should  belong  to  certain 
families;    and   have   we   not  utterly  and   ignominiously 


I04  John  Bright. 

failed  in  every  attempt  that  we  have  made?"  There 
were  many  hectoring  protests  against  the  annexation  as 
a  flagrant  breach  of  European  law,  but  nothing  par- 
ticular was  done.  The  ''English"  policy  to  which 
Bright  took  exception  proved  to  be  a  policy  of  loud 
barking,  and  no  biting  at  all. 

Bright  had  accepted  the  great  Budget  as  a  reasonable 
excuse  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Reform  Bill  of  i860. 
''  I  know  you  cannot  get  twenty  wagons  at  once 
through  Temple  Bar",  he  said;  and  the  phrase  passed 
into  a  proverb.  But  his  indignation  broke  out  when 
early  in  the  session  of  1861  Russell  announced,  ''with 
a  jocularity  that  was  absolutely  contemptuous  to  those 
who  placed  him  on  that  very  seat  that  he  might  advo- 
cate that  very  measure ",  that  the  Ministry  did  not 
intend  to  waste  time  by  introducing  another  Reform 
Bill.  The  country,  he  said,  did  not  seem  to  care  about 
the  question.  "What  do  you  want?"  cried  Bright. 
"  You  want  six-sevenths  of  the  people  to  make  a  demon- 
stration which  you  have  put  it  out  of  their  power  to 
make  in  a  peaceable  fashion."  Five  years  later  he  had 
to  make  a  similar  reply  to  a  similar  argument.  "There 
is  nothing  more  marvellously  obtuse  than  the  expression 
of  these  men  at  head-quarters,  that  we  need  not  give  the 
extension  of  the  suffrage  because  the  working  people 
are  quiet."  "  The  foundation  of  revolution  ",  he  said  in 
1866,  "has  in  every  country  been  laid  by  those  who 
pretended  to  be  especially  conservative." 

To  wait  for  the  perilous  argument  from  disaffection 
has  always,  as  Macaulay  so  often  remarked,  been  a 
common  error  of  English  statesmanship.  Bright's  in- 
dignation was  not  without  reason;  but  Russell  and  the 
Government  had  good  grounds  for  apprehending  that  no 
Reform  Bill  could  pass  the  Parliament  with  which  they 
had  to  deal.  A  struggle  for  parliamentary  reform  is 
inevitably  of  the  nature  of  a  struggle  not  only  between 


Parliamentary  Reform.  105 

parties  in  Parliament,  but  between  Parliament  itself  and 
the  country;  and  further  demonstrations,  whether  peace- 
ful or  turbulent,  were  necessary  before  Parliament  would 
yield.  Further,  as  matters  then  stood,  the  death  or 
incapacitation  of  Palmerston  was  a  necessary  condition 
preliminary  to  such  a  reform  as  would  satisfy  Brig-ht. 
Even  after  the  death  of  their  chief  the  Palmerstonians 
succeeded  once  in  scuttling-  the  ship. 

It  is  possible  that  a  renewal  of  the  popular  agitation 
would  have  proved  without  delay  the  accuracy  of  Bright's 
estimate  of  public  opinion,  but  for  the  momentous  event 
abroad  which  diverted  attention  from  reform,  and  im- 
posed upon  Bright  a  new  duty.  The  march  to  reform 
had  been  arrested  by  the  Crimean  war;  it  was  now 
delayed  by  the  civil  war  in  America.  No  foreign  event 
since  the  French  Revolution  has  produced  in  this  country 
so  much  animosity  of  divergent  opinion.  It  made  a 
schism  among  the  reformers.  Roebuck,  for  example, 
and  Scholefield,  Bright's  colleague  in  the  representation 
of  Birmingham,  were  strong  partisans  of  the  South. 

The  secession  of  the  Southern  States,  and  the  appeal 
to  arms  made  by  Lincoln,  brought  into  conflict  two  of 
Bright's  strongest  antipathies — -his  hatred  of  war,  and 
his  hatred  of  slavery.  Yet  he  had  less  hesitation  in 
declaring  his  adherence  to  the  cause  of  the  Federals 
than  his  friend  Cobden,  who  w^as  at  first  disposed  to 
sympathize  with  the  seceders,  as  free-traders  throwing 
off  the  yoke  of  a  protectionist  government.  Bright  per- 
ceived at  once  through  the  cloud  of  pretexts  that  the 
one  issue  at  stake  was  that  of  slavery  or  emancipation. 
That  this  was  so  is  now  a  matter  of  history.  At  the 
time  it  was  a  matter  of  opinion ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
many  Englishmen,  like  Dickens,  who  had  been  most 
vehement  in  using  the  slavery  of  the  South  as  a  reproach 
against  the  whole  American  nation,  sympathized  with 
the  South,  and  even  regarded  the  proclamation  of  liberty 


io6  John  Bright. 

made  by  the  Federals  as  disingenuously  intended  to 
enlist  philanthropy  on  their  side,  and  to  distract  atten- 
tion from  an  oppressive  attempt  to  subvert  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  disaffected  states.  Bright  found  plenty 
of  evidence  that  English  sympathy  with  the  secession 
was  due  in  part  to  jealousy  of  the  growing  strength  of 
the  Republic,  and  that  opinion  was  perverted  by  the 
apprehension,  so  distasteful  to  him,  of  a  disturbance  of 
the  Balance  of  Power. 

**The  object  of  the  South",  he  said,  **is  this — to 
escape  from  the  majority  who  wish  to  limit  the  area  of 
slavery;  to  found  a  slave  state  free  from  the  influence 
and  opinions  of  freedom,  a  state  whose  corner-stone  is 
the  perpetual  bondage  of  millions  of  men;  to  maintain 
in  bondage  four  millions  of  human  beings;  to  perpetuate 
for  ever  the  bondage  of  all  the  posterity  of  those  four 
millions  of  slaves."  *'  If  the  American  Republic  should 
be  overthrown,  there  will  be  a  wild  shriek  of  freedom  to 
startle  all  mankind." 

Bright  at  all  times  cherished  for  the  institutions  of 
the  United  States  a  singular  admiration,  which  inspired 
some  of  the  most  ambitious  flights  of  his  eloquence.  He 
was  ready  to  believe  everything  that  was  good  of  a 
country  where  the  will  of  the  majority  was  law,  and 
where  there  was  no  territorial  aristocracy,  no  remnants 
of  feudalism,  no  establishment  of  religion,  and  no  class, 
except  the  slaves  of  the  South,  condemned  to  such  hope- 
less penury  and  dependence  as  the  agricultural  labourers 
of  England.  He  was  silently  tolerant  of  American  pro- 
tection, and  of  what  Mr.  Morley  calls  ''the  political 
corruption  which  for  the  moment  obscures  the  great 
democratic  experiment "  he  showed  no  consciousness 
during  his  period  of  activity. 

There  were  always  persons  to  whom  Bright's  constant 
admeasurement  of  Britain  with  America  appeared  to 
be  un-English  and  unpatriotic;  and  his  use  of  this  topic 


Parliamentary  Reform.  107 

supplied  his  opponents  with  the  rather  nauseous  retort 
that  he  was  trying-  to  Americanize  our  institutions. 
But  it  is  apparent  that  his  affection  for  America  was 
based  on  consciousness  of  the  ties  of  a  common  blood 
and  a  common  language ;  and  that  he  felt  the  same  sort 
of  satisfaction  in  contemplating-  the  g-rowth  and  fore- 
casting- the  g-reatness  of  the  g-reat  English-speaking- 
nation  of  the  new  world  that  other  Englishmen  feel  in 
watching  the  expansion  of  our  own  empire.  When  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  declared  his  belief  that  the  cause  of  the 
North  could  not  succeed,  Bright  replied  in  words  that 
will  never  be  forgotten  in  America.  "  I  cannot  believe 
that  such  a  fate  will  befall  that  fair  land,  stricken 
though  it  now  is  with  the  ravages  of  war.  I  cannot 
believe  that  civilization  in  its  journey  with  the  sun  will 
sink  into  endless  night  in  order  to  gratify  the  ambition 
of  these  men,  who  seek  to  '  wade  through  slaughter  to 
a  throne,  and  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind '.  I 
have  another  and  a  far  brighter  vision  before  my  eyes. 
It  may  be  but  a  vision,  but  I  will  cherish  it.  I  see  one 
vast  confederation,  stretching  from  the  frozen  north  to 
the  glowing  south,  and  from  the  wild  billows  of  the 
Atlantic  westward  to  the  calmer  waters  of  the  Pacific 
main;  and  I  see  one  people,  and  one  language,  and  one 
law,  and  one  faith,  and  over  all  that  wide  continent  the 
home  of  freedom  and  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed  of 
every  race  and  of  every  clime." 

There  is  surely  nothing  unpatriotic,  nothing  that  is 
not  entirely  admirable,  in  these  great  hopes  for  humanity. 
Yet  it  is  one  who  reveres  Bright's  memory  who  com- 
ments thus  on  this  famous  peroration.  *'  Would  that  it 
were  possible  to  set  beside  this  noble  vision  some 
passage,  conceived  in  the  same  strain,  but  inspired  by 
an  equal  faith  in  the  high  destiny  of  his  own  country ! 
If  only  I  could  read  that  majestic  sentence  without 
thinking  of  the  scorn  and  derision  with  which   Bright 


io8  John  Bright. 

would  have  visited  any  man  who  had  used  the  same 
magniloquence  in  predicting"  the  future  of  the  empire  of 
Britain!" 

It  was  necessary  from  Bright's  point  of  view  to 
make  a  demonstration  of  sympathy  with  the  North,  in 
order  to  prevent  the  Confederate  party  in  Britain  from 
actually  involving  us  in  hostility  with  the  American 
Unionists,  especially  after  the  arrest  of  two  Southern 
emissaries  when  sailing  under  the  protection  of  the 
British  flag,  and  when  the  North  resented  the  piracies 
of  the  Alahavia.  He  made  the  advocacy  of  the  Northern 
cause  his  mission;  and  despite  his  love  of  peace  did 
not  allow  his  zeal  to  be  dismayed  even  by  the  horrors 
of  Sherman's  march.  For  a  short  time  he  seemed  to  be 
in  almost  as  small  a  minority  as  at  the  time  of  the 
Crimean  war.  But  he  had  now  the  British  hatred  of 
slavery  to  appeal  to,  and  he  carried  with  him,  not  indeed 
all  England  or  all  Liberals,  but  the  two  sections  of  the 
community  that  accepted  his  oracles — the  Noncon- 
formists and  the  working  men.  It  cannot  be  doubted 
that  he  did  good  service  to  his  country  by  speaking,  as 
he  said,  "for  that  policy  which  gives  hope  to  the 
bondsmen  of  the  South,  and  which  tends  to  generous 
thoughts,  and  generous  words,  and  generous  deeds, 
between  the  two  great  nations  which  speak  the  English 
language  and  from  their  origin  are  alike  entitled  to  the 
English  name  ".  The  sympathy  of  England  could  not 
avert  the  defeat  of  the  Confederates;  and  that  sym- 
pathy, if  it  had  been  unbroken,  might  have  engendered 
a  dangerous  international  animosity. 

The  war  brought  some  misfortune  to  Bright  himself. 
The  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  cut  off  the  supply 
of  cotton,  and  paralysed  the  industry  of  Lancashire. 
Bright's  private  fortune  was  impaired  by  the  generosity 
of  his  firm  to  their  workmen  for  whom  they  could  not 
find  employment. 


Parliamentary  Reform.  109 

The  American  war,  the  Schleswig--Holstein  question, 
and  the  cotton  famine  had  combined  to  prevent  the 
agitation  for  reform  from  proceeding  with  the  vigour 
with  which  it  had  been  begun  in  1858.  In  1865  the 
general  election  gave  the  Reformers  another  oppor- 
tunity. The  Liberal  leaders  had  promised  reform  six 
years  before,  and,  with  whatever  excuse,  had  failed  to 
redeem  that  promise.  Except  for  the  Gladstone  Bud- 
gets they  had  done  little  to  encourage  the  loyalty  of 
the  Radicals ;  and  the  sluggishness  of  the  Government 
and  the  House  gave  Bright  a  new  reason  for  pressing 
for  a  change  without  which  he  could  not  pursue  hope- 
fully his  crusade  against  privilege. 

The  feeling  of  the  outgoing  Parliament  towards 
reform  had  been  tested  by  a  Bill  introduced  in  the  last 
session  by  Edward  Baines,  member  for  Leeds,  to  reduce 
the  voting  qualification  in  the  boroughs.  In  the  debate 
the  coming  schism  had  been  foreshadowed  by  a  remark- 
able speech  made  by  Robert  Lowe,  a  Liberal  placeman, 
in  which  the  case  against  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
masses  was  presented  with  admirable  skill  and  force. 
He  warned  his  party  that  by  espousing  reform  they 
would  ruin  the  party,  if  they  failed,  and  the  country,  if 
they  succeeded.  Lowe's  Australian  experiences  had  led 
him  to  take  an  unfavourable  view — or,  as  Bright  said, 
a  '*  Botany  Bay  view  " — of  the  competence  of  the  work- 
ing-classes for  politics.  But  the  speech  was  portentous, 
because  Lowe  had  sat  for  thirteen  years  as  a  member  of 
what  was  ostensibly  a  Reform  party,  had  held  office  in 
two  ministries  pledged  to  reform,  and  had  voted  for 
the  earlier  Reform  Bills.  **The  Reform  question", 
cried  Bernal  Osborne,  the  chief  jester  of  the  Liberals, 
''has  fallen  from  its  high  estate.  It  is  'deserted  in  its 
utmost  need  by  those  its  former  bounty  fed '.  It  is 
reserved  for  an  independent  member  at  a  morning 
sitting  to  present  a  fragmentary  stump  of  the  Bill,  the 


no  John  Bright. 

whole  Bill,  and  nothing*  but  the  Bill,  to  contemplative 
Reformers  on  the  eve  of  an  expiring-  Parliament."  The 
division  g^ave  point  to  this  irony.  Fifteen  years  after 
the  leader  of  the  Liberal  party  had  declared  for  an 
extension  of  the  suffrage,  in  the  seventh  year  of  a 
ministry  that  had  come  into  power  on  the  cry  of 
reform,  and  in  a  House  in  which  the  Liberals  com- 
manded a  substantial  majority,  the  Bill  was  defeated  by 
a  majority  of  seventy-four. 

Before  Bright  entered  on  a  campaig-n  which  was  to 
end  in  his  greatest  victory,  he  had  sustained  the  heaviest 
blow  that  fortune  could  deal  at  his  happiness.  In 
March,  1865,  three  months  before  the  election,  Cobden 
died.  The  memorable  friendship  between  Bright  and 
Cobden  was  based  on  an  identity  almost  absolute  of 
political  aims, — for,  except  on  the  Maynooth  grant,  they 
never  differed  on  any  public  question, — and  on  the 
recognition  by  each  in  the  other  of  powers  of  mind 
denied  to  himself.  The  inner  history  of  that  friendship 
has  not  yet  been  written,  and  perhaps  will  never  be 
written,  for  Bright  refused  to  Cobden's  biographer  the 
use  of  the  correspondence  in  which  he  and  Cobden  had 
interchanged  their  most  intimate  thoughts.  For  many 
years  after  the  death  of  his  friend  Bright  scarcely  ever 
dared  to  mention  his  name  in  public,  lest  he  should  be 
overpowered  by  a  rush  of  emotion.  In  his  old  age  he 
once  told  a  friend  that  nearly  every  night  he  was  visited 
and  consoled  in  his  dreams  by  the  spirits,  or  by  the 
memory,  of  two  of  the  departed.  One  was  his  father, 
the  other  Richard  Cobden. 

Bright  was  returned  without  opposition.  But  for  the 
Reformers  the  most  auspicious  event  of  the  election  was 
the  rejection  of  Mr.  Gladstone  by  Oxford  University, 
and  his  return  for  an  industrial  constituency. 

A  comparison  of  Bright's  reform  speeches  in  1858  and 
1859  with  those  delivered  in  1865  and  the  two  years  fol- 


Parliamentary  Reform.  in 

lowing"  reveals  two  striking-  differences  of  topic.  In  the 
former  period  he  devoted  the  greater  part  of  his  addresses 
to  the  necessity  of  checking  by  popular  representation 
the  extravagant  expenditure  of  the  governing-  classes. 
In  the  latter,  the  topic  of  retrenchment  is  almost  forgot- 
ten. He  now  spoke  as  one  desiring-  democracy  for  its 
own  sake.  He  had  said,  for  instance,  at  Glasgow  in 
1858:  "I  hope  that  an  improved  representation  will 
change  all  this ;  that  that  great  portion  of  our  expendi- 
ture which  is  incurred  in  carrying  out  the  secret  and 
irresponsible  doings  of  the  Foreign  Office  will  be  placed 
directly  under  the  free  control  of  a  Parliament  elected  by 
the  great  body  of  the  United  Kingdom.  Then,  and  not 
till  then,  will  your  industry  be  secured  from  that  gigantic 
taxation  to  which  it  has  been  subjected  during  the  last 
hundred  and  fifty  years."  When  he  spoke  in  the  same 
city  in  1866  he  said:  ''The  class  which  has  hitherto 
ruled  in  this  country  has  failed  miserably.  It  revels  in 
power  and  wealth,  whilst  at  its  feet,  a  terrible  peril  for 
the  future,  lies  the  multitude  that  it  has  neglected.  If  a 
class  has  failed,  let  us  try  the  nation !  That  is  our  faith, 
that  is  our  purpose,  that  is  our  cry:  Let  us  try  the 
nation!" 

The  second  difference  is  this.  In  the  earlier  agitation 
he  had  laid  most  stress  on  his  proposal  of  a  redistribution 
of  seats  in  favour  of  the  large  towns.  In  the  speeches 
of  the  second  period  he  made  the  extension  of  the  suffrage 
to  the  working-classes  the  first  and  indispensable  element 
of  reform.  He  still  spoke  of  the  county  representation 
as  ''a  dead  body  tied  to  the  living  body  of  the  borough 
representation".  But  he  was  chiefly  indignant  at  the 
attempt  to  "erect  the  middle-class  into  a  sort  of  olig- 
archy" by  treating  the  settlement  of  1832  as  final.  An 
extended  suffrage  must  come  first;  for  the  ballot  and 
redistribution  he  was  content,  if  necessary,  to  wait,  pro- 
vided the  artisan  got  his  vote.     Both  in  the  towns  and 


112  John  Bright. 

in  the  House  he  gave  three  reasons  for  advising  the 
Reformers  to  be  content  for  the  moment  with  this  instal- 
ment of  reform.  In  the  first  place,  the  small  boroughs 
constituted  a  general  grievance,  not  a  class  grievance; 
the  grievance  that  cried  aloud  for  redress  was  that  of 
the  excluded  class.  Secondly,  he  believed  that  opinion 
was  more  ripe  upon  the  question  of  the  suffrage;  and 
thirdly,  he  saw  that  it  would  be  more  difficult  to  carry  a 
scheme  of  disfranchisement  through  the  House  in  face  of 
the  natural  hostility  of  the  representatives  of  the  threat- 
ened boroughs.  Any  possible  scheme  of  disfranchise- 
ment, he  said,  must  needs  be  trifling  and  unsatisfactory. 

These  speeches  are  also  distinguished  from  the  former 
by  the  ferocity  of  his  attack  on  the  Conservative  party 
and  its  leaders.  He  accused  the  Tories  of  permanent 
and  virulent  hostility  to  commerce,  and  of  a  sustained 
and  persistent  hatred  of  popular  institutions.  The  course 
of  the  Tories  was  factious  to  the  very  last  degree ;  they 
were  a  decaying  faction,  a  supercilious  and  Insolent 
party,  and  so  forth.  Conservatism  was  the  great  enemy 
of  order;  its  principles  would  have  led  to  anarchy.  At 
the  general  election  many  Conservatives  declared  for  a 
well-considered  measure  of  reform.  Bright  interpreted 
this  provoking  qualification  in  the  light  of  the  fancy 
franchises  of  1859,  and  of  a  phrase  newly  invented  by 
Disraeli, — who  was,  said  Bright,  the  "mystery-man"  of 
the  party,  and  ''  did  the  conjuring  business  for  them", — 
the  phrase  of  *'the  lateral  extension  of  the  franchise". 
He  meant,  said  Bright,  *Mt  Is  true  you  are  shut  out;  the 
Reform  Bill  was  not  satisfactory;  the  representation 
must  be  amended;  and  therefore  we  will  admit  somebody 
else". 

Hitherto  Bright's  invective  had  hardly  discriminated 
between  the  two  great  parties.  He  had  castigated 
Palmerston  more  frequently  and  with  greater  gust  than 
Disraeli.      His  speeches  were  now  strongly  Impregnated 


Parliamentary  Reform.  113 

with  the  party  spirit  which  he  had  formerly  disowned. 
The  fact  is  that  he  had  now  good  reason  to  be  hopeful 
of  the  Liberal  party  of  the  future.  Russell  had  by 
private  overtures  convinced  Bright  of  his  sincere  desire 
of  reform ;  Palmerston  died  shortly  after  the  election ; 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  was  already  secure  of  the  reversion 
of  the  leadership.  It  was  already  apparent  that  under 
Mr.  Gladstone's  leadership  the  policy  of  the  Liberals 
would  be  more  democratic.  As  early  as  i860  his  col- 
league, Lord  Clarendon,  had  remarked  to  Greville  that 
Bright  and  Mr.  Gladstone  were  converging  from  differ- 
ent points  to  the  same  end;  and  again,  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone  was  moving  towards  a  democratic  union  with 
Bright.  Palmerston,  too,  had  uttered  the  famous  pre- 
diction: ''Gladstone  will  soon  have  it  all  his  own  way; 
whenever  he  gets  my  place,  we  shall  have  strange 
doings".  The  more  Mr.  Gladstone  came  to  the  front  the 
better  disposed  Bright  became  to  act  loyally  with  the 
party.  He  had  at  last  found  his  leader.  He  was  more 
versed  in  reprehension  than  in  encomium;  but  by  his 
animated  and  unstinted  eulogy  at  this  time  he  associated 
Mr.  Gladstone  with  himself  in  the  popularity  he  had 
won,  and  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  establishment  of 
his  ascendency  in  the  hearts  of  the  common  people. 
Even  so  self-reliant  a  man  as  Bright  is  happier  if  he  can 
lean  on  another;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  his  devotion 
to  Mr.  Gladstone  ripened  rapidly  from  the  date  of  the 
loss  of  Cobden. 

On  March  13  the  Reform  Bill  of  1866,  the  fourth  and 
last  of  Russell's  failures,  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. The  Bill  was  a  moderate  one  as  compared  with 
the  measure  which  Bright  had  for  so  many  years  advo- 
cated, or  even  with  Russell's  earlier  efforts.  It  reduced 
the  county  qualification  from  ;^5o  to  ;^i4,  provided  the 
occupation  included  a  dwelling-house  of  ;^7  value,  and 

the  borough  qualification  frcyai  ;^io  to  J^'^.     The  fancy 
( M  433 )  F 


114  John  Bright. 

franchises  made  no  reappearance,  except  that  ;^5o  in 
a  bank  was  to  quaHfy  for  a  vote.  Bright  recog-nized 
at  once  the  essential  virtue  of  this  Bill, — that,  though 
studiously  moderate  and  redolent  of  compromise,  it  was 
at  least  a  Bill  intended  to  pass  and  not  merely  for  show. 
*'It  is  not  a  Bill",  he  said,  *' which  if  I  had  been  consulted 
by  its  framers  I  should  have  recommended."  He  cal- 
culated that  out  of  five  or  six  millions  of  men  in  the 
United  Kingdom  who  were  not  yet  enfranchised,  the 
whole  number  of  the  working-classes  to  be  admitted  in 
the  boroughs  of  England  and  Wales  was  only  two  hun- 
dred thousand.  *'  I  found,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  brought 
forward  the  Bill,  that  it  differed  in  almost  every  particu- 
lar from  the  Bill  I  had  urged  him  and  his  colleagues  to 
prepare."  But  he  welcomed  it  as  an  honest  Bill,  and  as 
offering  *'a  very  sensible  advance  toward  fair  represen- 
tation"; and  he  persuaded  the  Reformers  in  the  country 
to  adopt  this  opinion. 

It  was  soon  discovered  that  the  enemy  the  Reformers 
had  to  fear  was  the  Palmerstonian  section  of  the  inde- 
pendent Liberals.  Lowe,  who  sat  for  one  of  the  rotten 
boroughs  threatened  by  the  Radicals,  took  from  the  first 
the  lead  of  the  opposition  to  the  Bill,  and  was  joined  by 
Horsman,  member  for  Stroud.  Bright,  who  always 
picked  out  for  attack  the  strongest  man  in  the  adverse 
host,  fell  upon  Lowe  with  all  his  energy  both  in  the 
House  and  in  the  country.  The  real  fighting  in  the 
debates,  says  Lowe's  biographer,  was  between  Lowe  and 
Bright.  "The  right  hon.  gentleman",  said  Bright  in 
his  speech  on  the  first  reading,  referring  to  Horsman, 
**  is  the  first  of  the  new  party  who  has  retired  into  what 
may  be  called  his  political  Cave  of  Adullam;  and  he  has 
called  about  him  every  one  that  was  in  distress  and  every 
one  that  was  discontented.  He  has  long  been  anxious 
to  form  a  party  in  the  House.  At  last  he  has  succeeded 
in  hooking  the  right  hon.  gentleman  the  member  for 


Parliamentary  Reform.  115 

Calne.  There  was  an  opinion  expressed  many  years 
ago  by  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  that  two  men  would 
make  a  party.  When  a  party  is  formed  of  two  men  so 
amiable  and  so  discreet  as  the  two  right  hon.  gentlemen, 
we  may  hope  to  see  for  the  first  time  in  Parliament  a 
party  perfectly  harmonious,  and  distinguished  by  mutual 
and  unbroken  trust.  But  there  is  one  difficulty  that  it 
is  impossible  to  remove.  This  party  of  two  reminds  me 
of  the  Scotch  terrier  which  was  so  covered  with  hair 
that  you  could  not  tell  which  was  the  head  and  which 
was  the  tail  of  it." 

The  simile  of  the  Cave  of  Adullam  has  become  a 
permanent  addition  to  our  political  slang;  and  that  of 
the  Scotch  terrier  was  enjoyed  at  the  time  with  a  relish 
which  posterity  can  never  taste  in  a  personal  joke.  But 
the  Cave  contained  before  long  many  more  than  two 
malcontents. 

At  the  outset  Lowe  gave  a  terrible  advantage  to  his 
antagonist.  With  that  engaging  aptitude  for  saying 
and  doing  unpopular  things,  which  will  long  keep  his 
memory  green,  and  which  perhaps  was  itself  a  cause  of 
his  distrust  of  a  populace  which  he  could  never  hope  to 
please,  Lowe  remarked:  '*  Let  any  gentleman  consider 
the  constituencies  he  has  had  the  honour  to  be  concerned 
with.  If  you  want  venality,  if  you  want  ignorance,  if 
you  want  drunkenness  and  facility  for  being  intimidated, 
or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  want  impulsive,  unreflect- 
ing, and  violent  people,  where  do  you  look  for  them  in 
the  constituencies?  Do  you  go  to  the  top,  or  to  the 
bottom?" 

This  passage  (which  is  here  given  as  cited  in  Lowe's 
biography  from  a  revised  issue  of  the  speech,  rather  than 
according  to  the  report  quoted  by  Bright)  was  construed 
by  the  Reformers  as  a  general  description  of  the  working- 
classes  of  England.  If  this  was  a  mistaken  interpreta- 
tion, it  was  an  inevitable  one,  inasmuch  as  the  sentence 


ii6  John  Bright. 

formed  part  of  an  arg-ument  against  the  enfranchisement 
of  a  select  few  of  the  most  skilful  and  thrifty  of  the 
industrial  class.  Nothing  could  illustrate  better  the 
difference  between  different  conceptions  of  patriotism 
than  the  applause  with  which  this  imputation  upon  a  class 
that  formed  the  majority  of  Englishmen  was  greeted  by 
the  very  men  to  whom  Bright's  sentiments  so  often 
appeared  un-English  and  unpatriotic.  No  one  ever  says 
this  sort  of  thing  without  meaning  it ;  and  Lowe  there- 
fore deserves  the  praise  which  should  always  be  given 
to  a  politician  when  he  is  sincere.  But  no  statesman 
ever  said  a  thing  less  likely  to  serve  his  own  purpose. 
Bright  took  full  advantage  of  his  adversary's  indiscre- 
tion. ''I  would  recommend",  he  said,  "that  these 
passages  from  that  celebrated  and  unhappy  speech 
should  be  printed  on  cards,  and  should  be  hung  up  in 
every  room  in  every  factory,  workshop,  and  clubhouse, 
and  in  every  place  where  working  men  are  accustomed 
to  assemble."  He  repeated  the  quotation  at  every 
meeting.  Lowe  had  raised  himself,  with  some  assistance 
from  Bright,  to  the  eminence  of  the  most  unpopular 
man  in  the  country.  At  the  reform  meetings  pictures 
of  the  Scotch  Terrier  were  exhibited  amidst  shouts  of 
ridicule  and  execration  which  recalled  the  time  a  century 
before  when  the  Jack  Boot  was  the  symbol  of  the  object 
of  popular  hatred.  Those  who  regard  the  reform  of 
1867  as  excessively  democratic  must  lay  the  blame  upon 
the  indiscretion  of  Lowe  as  well  as  on  the  zeal  of  Bright. 
'*  It  is  Mr.  Lowe's  speeches",  said  Forster,  ''that  have 
aroused  the  working- classes  from  their  apathy,  and 
enlisted  them  one  and  all  in  the  cause  of  reform." 

The  danger  from  the  Adullamites  was  pressing;  and 
Bright,  instead  of  waiting  till  the  autumn,  roused  the 
country  in  the  short  Easter  recess.  It  was  not  till  the 
end  of  April  that  the  long  debate  on  the  second  reading 
ended  in  a  victory  for  the  Bill  by  a  majority  of  five  only. 


Parliamentary  Reform.  117 

A  separate  Bill  for  redistribution  was  then  broug-ht  in, 
and  the  two  Bills  were  committed  tog'ether.  This  Bill 
ag^ain  fell  far  short  of  Brig-ht's  Bill  of  1858;  it  dealt  with 
forty-nine  seats  only  instead  of  the  130  scheduled  by 
Brig-ht.  The  defeat  of  the  Government  was  now  cer- 
tain; and  on  June  18  they  were  beaten  by  the  Cave  and 
the  regular  Opposition  on  a  vital  clause  by  a  majority  of 
eleven.  The  second  Derby-Disraeli  Cabinet  succeeded. 
The  Adullamites  refused  to  join  the  Ministry,  and  by 
this  refusal,  as  it  turned  out,  sacrificed  whatever  the 
cause  of  oligfarchy  had  g-ained  by  their  disloyalty. 

The  ang-er  of  the  provincial  towns  blazed  fiercely 
throug^hout  the  autumn.  The  working-  men  were  now 
thoroughly  aroused,  and  flocked  to  the  banner  of  Bright 
and  his  lieutenants  with  a  unanimous  enthusiasm  that 
at  last  startled  Pall  Mall  and  Downing  Street.  Bright 
was  able  to  tell  the  House  next  session  that  a  thousand 
meetings  had  been  held,  that  at  every  one  the  doors 
were  open  for  any  man  to  enter,  and  that  at  every  one 
an  all  but  unanimous  vote  for  reform  had  been  taken. 
No  public  hall  was  large  enough  for  the  demonstrations 
of  the  great  towns.  At  Birmingham,  Glasgow,  Leeds, 
and  Edinburgh  the  local  Reformers,  recruited  from  the 
surrounding  country,  marched  in  procession  to  large 
open  spaces,  and  there  assembled  in  numbers  which  in 
each  case  exceeded  the  adult  male  population  of  the 
town  itself.  B right's  command  of  the  popular  mind 
had  now  reached  its  zenith;  he  was  the  Mirabeau  of  the 
moment;  and  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  had  he 
chosen  he  could  have  ordered  and  guided  a  revolution. 
He  spoke  at  Birmingham,  Manchester,  Leeds,  and  Glas- 
gow; then  he  crossed  the  channel  and  inflamed  the  zeal 
of  the  men  of  Dublin;  and  finally  addressed  a  great 
meeting  of  the  trades-unions  in  London. 

*'The  accession  to  office  of  Lord  Derby",   he  said, 
*Ms  a  declaration  of  war  against  the  working-classes." 


ii8  John  Bright. 

''Justice  is  impossible  from  a  class;  it  is  certain  and  easy 
from  a  nation."  ''If  the  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons were  placed  at  Temple  Bar,  and  if  he  had  orders  to 
tap  upon  the  shoulder  every  well-dressed  and  apparently 
cleanly-washed  man  who  passed  throug-h  that  ancient 
bar  until  he  had  numbered  six  hundred  and  fifty-eig^ht, 
and  if  the  Crown  summoned  those  658  to  be  the  Parlia- 
ment of  the  United  Kingdom,  my  honest  conviction  is 
that  you  would  have  a  better  Parliament  than  now 
exists.  It  would  be  a  Parliament  that  would  act  as  a 
jury  that  would  take  some  heed  of  the  facts  and  argu- 
ments laid  before  it.  It  would  be  free  at  any  rate  from 
the  class  prejudices  which  weigh  upon  the  present  House 
of  Commons.  It  would  be  free  from  the  overshadowing- 
presence  of  what  are  called  noble  families.  It  would 
owe  no  allegiance  to  the  great  land-owners." 

The  statistical  case  for  reform  was  put  by  Bright 
thus:  out  of  every  hundred  gfrown  men  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  eighty-four  had  no  votes;  and  the  votes  of 
the  enfranchised  sixteen  were  so  distributed  that  half  of 
the  House  of  Commons  represented  one-seventh  of  the 
electors,  so  that  less  than  three  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion could  command  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  House. 

One  incident  of  these  meetings  deserves  special  notice. 
Bright  was  by  nature  a  constitutionalist  and  therefore  a 
loyalist;  and  his  loyalty  to  the  Throne,  like  that  of  all 
Englishmen  of  his  time,  was  associated  with  a  g^reat 
veneration  for  the  character  of  the  Queen.  In  the  early 
years  of  her  reign,  when  she  was  for  a  short  time  unpopu- 
lar with  the  Tory  party,  he  had  taken  occasion  in  one  of 
his  first  recorded  speeches  to  rebuke  one  of  his  opponents 
in  the  church-rate  dispute  at  Rochdale  for  some  act  of 
disrespect  to  the  sovereign.  There  was  now  in  London 
a  certain  amount  of  dissatisfaction  because  the  Queen, 
after  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort,  had  declined  those 
public  appearances  which  appear  to  metropolitan  loyalty 


Parliamentary  Reform.  119 

to  form  a  large  part  of  the  duty  of  a  limited  monarch. 
At  the  reform  meeting  in  St.  James's  Hall,  a  Liberal 
statesman,  whether  speaking  seriously  or  essaying  a 
tasteless  jest  at  the  expense  of  the  audience,  tried  to 
involve  the  meeting  in  the  absurdity  of  complaining 
because  the  Queen  had  not  shown  herself  to  a  procession 
of  Reformers  which  had  passed  her  windows  on  its  way 
to  the  Park.  Bright  treated  as  an  insult  to  the  Queen 
what  was  perhaps  intended  only  as  an  insult  to  the 
audience.  He  rose  in  great  indignation.  **  I  could  not 
sit  here",  he  said,  "and  hear  that  observation  without 
a  sensation  of  wonder  and  of  pain.  I  think  there  has 
been  by  many  persons  a  great  injustice  done  to  the 
Queen  in  reference  to  her  desolate  and  widowed  position. 
And  I  venture  to  say  this,  that  a  woman,  be  she  the 
queen  of  a  great  realm  or  the  wife  of  one  of  your 
labouring  men,  who  can  keep  alive  in  her  heart  a  great 
sorrow  for  the  lost  object  of  her  life  and  her  affections, 
is  not  likely  to  be  wanting  in  a  great  and  generous  sym- 
pathy with  you."  By  making  this  use  of  an  unexpected 
opportunity  Bright  had  the  satisfaction  of  doing  real 
service  to  the  Queen.  The  working  men  who  filled  the 
hall — the  same  men  of  whom  Carlyle  spoke  as  "  Beales 
and  his  roughs" — responded  with  the  utmost  warmth; 
and  the  classes  that  were  really  responsible  for  the 
grumbling  were  shamed  into  silence. 

When  Parliament  met  for  the  ever-memorable  session 
of  1867,  the  recalcitrant  Liberals  and  probably  the 
greater  part  of  the  Conservatives  still  meditated  resist- 
ance to  the  popular  clamour.  But  the  great  statesman 
who  led  the  House  of  Commons  knew  that  the  hour  of 
democracy  had  struck,  and  was  resolved  to  turn  the 
inevitable  concession  into  a  personal  triumph  for  himself, 
and  if  possible  to  the  advantage  of  his  party.  To  sup- 
pose that  Disraeli  did  not  foresee  the  end  of  the  session 
from  the  beginning,  that  he  was  unaware  whither  the 


I20  John  Bright. 

course  he  had  marked  out  would  lead  him,  that  he  had 
not  desig-ned  the  policy  of  yielding-  bit  by  bit  after  flat- 
tering his  followers  with  a  show  of  conservative  caution, 
is  to  refuse  justice  to  his  extraordinary  shrewdness. 
Probably  he  never  shared  the  distrust  of  democracy 
prevalent  in  his  party.  Mr.  C.  A.  Cooper  reports  Bright 
as  saying  of  him:  "  He  is  what  you  will  hear  more  of 
in  the  future — a  Tory  democrat.  He  has  no  love  for 
those  who  now  lean  upon  him.  He  has  ability  above 
most  men  of  the  time ;  and  he  will  use  his  ability  to  lead 
his  friends  into  ways  they  have  abhorred."  The  history 
of  the  century  must  be  misread  by  a  man  who  cherishes 
the  preconception  that  the  Liberal  was  essentially  a 
democratic,  and  the  Conservative  essentially  an  aristo- 
cratic, party.  The  Liberal  party,  as  we  have  seen, 
threw  off  their  aristocratic  fetters  with  not  a  little  re- 
luctance; and  Disraeli's  feat  of  democratizing'  the  Con- 
servative party  was  scarcely  more  arduous  than  B  right's 
feat  of  democratizing-  the  Liberal  party.  But  it  was 
more  astonishing-  because  it  had  the  appearance  at  least 
of  being-  the  unaided  achievement  of  one  man,  and  of 
being  performed  with  the  rapidity  of  a  stroke  of  leger- 
demain. 

There  must  always  be  room  for  divergent  conjecture 
as  to  Disraeli's  motives,  for  no  one  will  reproach  him 
with  that  indiscreet  candour  on  which  he  ironically  feli- 
citated Bright.  But  the  real  and  permanent  difference 
between  his  political  theory  and  Bright's  related,  not  to 
the  democratic,  but  rather  to  the  imperial,  idea.  If  we 
may  credit  him  with  the  expectation  that  the  new  demo- 
cracy might  be  educated  into  his  conception  of  political 
or  imperial  purposes  as  readily  as  into  that  of  Bright, 
such  a  hope  finds  some  justification  in  subsequent  his- 
tory. 

The  Queen's  speech  promised  a  measure  which  should 
freely  extend  the  elective  franchise  without  unduly  dis- 


Parliamentary  Reform.  121 

turbing  the  balance  of  political  power.  On  February  1 1 
Disraeli  declared  that  parliamentary  reform  should  no 
longer  be  a  question  to  decide  the  fate  of  ministries. 
Judging  by  the  repeated  failures  of  the  past,  it  was 
evident  that  reform  might  be  indefinitely  postponed  if 
each  successive  ministry  staked  its  existence  on  the 
details  of  its  own  measure.  In  1859,  he  said,  the 
Liberals  had  turned  him  out  on  a  captious  point  of 
detail,  and  then,  having  incurred  the  responsibility,  had 
shrunk  from  fulfilling  their  duty  by  passing  their  own 
measure.  This  was  fair  enough.  Disraeli  seemed  to 
be  inviting  the  House  of  Commons  to  reform  itself;  he 
was  really  inviting  it  to  help  himself  in  forcing  upon  his 
party  a  gradual  but  swift  reversal  of  its  traditional 
policy.  If  any  trick  was  intended,  it  was  a  trick  in 
favour  of  reform;  but  the  Reformers  not  unnaturally 
misconstrued  the  intention. 

Disraeli  next  laid  on  the  table  thirteen  resolutions,  by 
accepting  or  modifying  which  the  House  was  to  instruct 
the  Government  what  sort  of  Bill  to  bring  in.  The  re- 
solutions vaguely  prefigured  a  measure  whose  salient 
feature  should  be  an  apparatus  of  checks  to  prevent  the 
predominance  in  the  electorate  of  the  working-classes. 
But  in  moving  the  House  into  committee  on  the  resolu- 
tions he  gave  the  details  of  the  Bill  which  was  in  the 
mind  of  the  Government.  It  was  to  include  a  revival 
of  the  fancy  franchises  of  1859,  a  general  qualification  of 
;^2o  rating  in  counties  and  ^6  in  boroughs,  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  areas  of  boroughs,  and  a  redistribution  of 
thirty  seats.  Lowe  and  Bright  agreed  in  suggesting 
that  the  resolutions  should  be  omitted  and  the  Bill  at 
once  printed.  This  course  was  adopted;  but  there  was 
a  short  delay  due  to  the  withdrawal  of  Lord  Cranborne 
(now  Marquis  of  Salisbury)  and  two  other  members  of 
the  Cabinet,  who  had  agreed  to  the  resolutions,  but  who 
refused  to  support  the  measure  sketched  by  Disraeli. 


122  John  Bright. 

On  March  13  the  actual  Bill  was  at  last  introduced. 
Already  a  startling-  concession  had  been  made.  What 
was  now  proposed  was  a  £1^  rating-  qualification  in 
counties,  and  a  household  qualification  irrespective  of 
value  in  towns.  There  were  four  collateral  franchises — 
an  educational  franchise,  admitting  members  of  certain 
professions  and  men  who  had  passed  certain  examina- 
tions, a  savings-bank  franchise,  a  property  franchise, 
and  a  direct-taxation  franchise.  As  for  redistribution, 
seven  seats  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  Government 
owing  to  the  disfranchisement  of  four  corrupt  boroughs; 
twenty-three  boroughs  of  less  than  7000  inhabitants, 
and  returning  two  members,  were  to  spare  one  member 
each;  and  of  these  thirty  seats,  fourteen  were  allotted 
to  new  boroughs,  fifteen  to  counties,  and  one  to  the 
University  of  London.  A  new  proposal  was  that  electors 
were  to  be  permitted  to  vote  by  paper  without  personal 
attendance  at  the  poll. 

If  the  Conservatives  were  taken  aback  at  finding 
household  suffrage,  the  dream  of  the  impracticable 
Radicals,  thrust  into  the  Bill  of  a  Conservative  Govern- 
ment, the  attention  of  the  Reformers  was  fixed  on  the 
checks  by  which  the  Bill  proposed  to  preserve  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  educated  classes.  The  first  was  a 
provision  requiring  two  years'  residence,  instead  of  the 
twelve  months  fixed  by  the  Act  of  1832,  as  a  condition 
of  registration,  and  so  excluding  the  migratory  class 
of  which  the  lowest  stratum  of  the  population  is  largely 
composed.  The  second  was  the  dual  vote.  A  man  who 
was  qualified  as  a  ratepaying  householder  and  also  as 
paying  twenty  shillings  in  direct  taxation  was  to  exercise 
his  suff'rage  under  both  qualifications.  The  third  and 
most  important  was  the  requirement  of  personal  payment 
of  rates  as  a  condition  of  the  franchise.  This  provision 
excluded  not  only  householders  exempted  from  poor- 
rates  on  the  plea  of  poverty — a  class  which  Bright  called 


Parliamentary  Reform.  123 

the  residuum,  and  which  he  also  was  willing-  to  exclude — 
but  the  compound  householders,  whose  rates,  according 
to  a  method  established  by  local  habits  and  local  Acts 
of  Parliament,  were  paid  by  the  landlord  and  counted 
in  the  rent.  The  effect  of  this  restriction  would  have 
varied  in  different  towns.  In  Sheffield,  for  example, 
the  clause  would  have  admitted  16,000  householders; 
in  Birmingham,  according  to  Bright,  it  would  have 
admitted  2400  and  excluded  36,000. 

Mr.  Gladstone  formulated  ten  objections  to  the  Bill 
as  it  stood;  and  Bright  declared  it  very  unsatisfactory 
and  very  bad.  ''I  think",  he  said,  'Mt  has  marks  of 
being  a  production  not  of  the  friends  but  of  the  enemies 
of  reform."  Nevertheless  the  Reformers  of  the  Liberal 
party,  confident  in  their  majority,  addressed  themselves 
to  accept  Disraeli's  invitation  and  amend  the  Bill,  Bright's 
desire  that  they  should  rather  upset  the  Government  by 
rejecting  the  Bill  and  produce  a  measure  of  their  own 
being  overborne  by  the  general  sense  of  the  party.  But 
once  more  their  counsels  were  divided  by  a  new  schism. 
A  group,  known  from  the  place  in  which  they  laid  their 
conspiracy  as  the  tea-room  party,  revolted  from  Mr. 
Gladstone's  lead,  and  defeated  his  amendment  to  admit 
the  compound  householder.  Immediately  after  this 
division  the  House  adjourned  for  the  Easter  holidays. 

Then  came,  with  dramatic  suddenness  and  complete- 
ness, the  catastrophe  of  the  play.  The  indignation  of 
the  towns  broke  out  again,  and  the  demonstrations  of 
the  previous  autumn  were  repeated.  Bright  went  to 
his  constituency,  and  told  them  the  Conservatives  were 
bewildered.  *'The  whole  Tor}^  party  has  been  dragged 
from  its  anchorage.  They  find  no  longer  any  holding- 
ground,  and  in  their  confusion  they  offer  they  know  not 
what."  But  he  directed  all  the  force  of  his  invective 
against  the  tea-room  party — the  forty  Reformers,  who, 
in  the  phrase  he  borrowed  from  Bernal  Osborne,  **had 


124  John  Bright. 

had  salt  put  on  their  tails  ".  For  the  first  time  he  ap- 
peared as  an  enthusiast  of  party  loyalty.  "What  can 
a  party  do  in  Parliament  if  every  man  is  to  play  his  own 
little  game?  Why,  a  costermonger's  donkey-cart,  that 
would  not  travel  from  here  to  London  In  a  week,  yet, 
by  running  athwart  the  North-Western  Line,  might  stop 
and  bring  to  destruction  a  great  express  train.  And  so 
twenty  very  small  men,  who  during  their  whole  political 
lives  have  not  advanced  the  question  of  reform  by  one 
hair's-breadth  or  by  one  moment  of  time,  can  at  a  critical 
moment  like  this  throw  themselves  athwart  the  objects 
of  a  great  party,  and  mar  a  great  measure  that  ought 
to  affect  the  interests  of  the  country  beneficially  for  all 
time."  The  cry  of  the  mass  meetings  was  that  Disraeli 
should  be  turned  out,  and  the  cause  of  reform  entrusted 
to  Mr.  Gladstone. 

The  donkey-cart  proved  as  successful  an  argument  as 
the  Scotch  terrier.  The  revolting  Liberals,  astonished 
at  the  storm  they  had  raised,  were  persuaded  or  intimi- 
dated into  loyalty.  Disraeli  made  at  first  a  mere  show, 
and  then  not  even  a  show,  of  resistance.  Within  three 
weeks  of  the  day  when  Parliament  reassembled  all  the 
three  safeguards  had  disappeared.  The  dual  vote  was 
abandoned;  the  two  years'  residence  was  reduced  to  one; 
and  finally  Disraeli  completed  the  consternation  of  the 
Cave  by  promising  to  devise  a  plan  for  the  admission  of 
the  compound  householder.  Lowe  uttered  his  solemn 
protest  against  "3.  clause  which  com.prises  in  itself  a 
whole  revolution".  ''Your  repentance,"  he  said,  ''bitter 
as  I  know  it  will  be,  will  come  too  late."  But  on  this 
occasion  he  went  beyond  the  safe  generalities  of  a 
cautious  prophet,  and  injured  the  eff"ect  of  his  prognosti- 
cations by  condescending  upon  particulars.  The  new 
electorate  would  repudiate  the  National  Debt  and  insti- 
tute an  inconvertible  paper  currency. 

Further  concessions  to  the  Reformers  followed.     The 


Parliamentary  Reform.  125 

vote  was  granted  to  lodgers  in  towns;  the  collateral 
or  fancy  franchises  were  abandoned;  the  qualifying 
value  in  the  counties  was  reduced  to  £12.  The  redis- 
tribution of  seats  was  also  extended,  the  limit  of  popula- 
tion under  which  a  town  should  not  return  two  members 
being  raised  to  10,000.  Finally,  the  Government  at 
first  refused,  and  then  consented,  to  allot  a  third  seat  to 
the  four  largest  provincial  towns;  and  the  proposed 
system  of  voting-papers  was  abandoned. 

Lord  Cranborne  gave  voice  to  the  grief  of  the  uncon- 
vinced Conservatives,  and  Lowe  to  that  of  the  disaffected 
Whigs;  but  Disraeli's  triumph  was  complete;  and  the 
Bill  was  read  a  third  time  without  a  division.  It  was 
left  for  the  melancholy  Jaques  of  Chelsea  to  shake  his 
head  over  the  triumph  of  "John  of  Bromwicham"  and 
of  ''the  superlative  Hebrew  conjuror,  spell-binding  all  the 
great  lords,  great  parties,  great  interests  of  England  to 
his  hand,  and  leading  them  by  the  nose  like  helpless,  mes- 
merized, somnambulant  cattle  to  such  issue".  But  the 
general  feeling  in  the  country  was  one  of  satisfaction  that, 
for  good  or  for  evil,  the  long-vexed  question  was  settled ; 
that  the  settlement  was  broad  enough  to  last  a  genera- 
tion; and  that  the  cccupation  of  the  agitator  was  gone. 

Bright  had  been  one  of  a  small  minority  that  voted 
for  John  Stuart  Mill's  amendment  admitting  women  to 
the  franchise.  In  regard  to  this  vote  he  afterwards 
made  an  admission  very  uncommon  with  him — that  he 
had  voted  with  hesitation  and  misgiving,  and  in  defer- 
ence to  Mill,  whose  services  to  the  cause  of  reform  had 
latterly  been  very  valuable.  On  this  question  his  opinion 
always  wavered.  Peradventure  his  reason  was  con- 
vinced, but  the  old  Adam  of  sentiment  resisted. 

In  the  form  in  which  it  ultimately  passed  into  law, 
the  Bill  entirely  satisfied  the  conditions  which  Bright 
had  for  so  many  years  laid  down,  except  in  three  par- 
ticulars, in  regard  to  all  of  which  he  lived  to  see  his 


126  John  Bright. 

views  adopted.  The  readjustment  of  seats  fell  short  of 
his  scheme  of  1858;  the  ballot  was  not  conceded;  and 
the  Lords  had  been  allowed  to  enact  a  provision  taken 
from  Russell's  old  Bills,  by  which  the  minority  were 
to  have  a  chance  of  returning  one  member  in  each  of 
the  three-member  constituencies.  This  device,  carried 
ag-ainst  a  strong-  protest  by  Bright,  disappeared  without 
a  word  of  regret  in  1885. 

The  passing  of  the  second  Reform  Bill  was  the  crown- 
ing triumph  of  Bright's  career.  *Mt  is  discovered  in  the 
year  1867",  he  said  with  pardonable  exultation,  **that 
my  principles  all  along  have  been  entirely  constitutional, 
and  my  course  perfectly  patriotic.  The  invective  and 
vituperation  that  have  been  poured  upon  me  have  now 
been  proved  to  be  entirely  a  mistake."  He  had  been 
for  many  years  the  unquestioned  leader  of  the  Reformers; 
he  had  borne  the  brunt  of  many  battles,  and  had  out- 
lived many  defeats.  It  was  he  who  had  forced  the 
question  upon  Parliament,  as  Cobden  had  forced  free- 
trade,  in  despite  of  the  indisposition  of  Whigs  and 
statesmen.  There  are  elements  in  the  eulogy  of  his 
first  enterprise  that  must  of  necessity  be  omitted  from 
any  commendation  of  the  second.  Free  trade  in  corn, 
if  a  good  thing,  was  a  good  thing  in  itself;  its  benefits 
were  immediate  and  direct;  the  hungry  were  fed,  the 
idle  found  employment,  and  wealth  flowed  into  the 
country  through  the  open  ports.  Parliamentary  reform 
is  to  be  judged  by  remoter  results ;  its  benefits  are  indi- 
rect and  relative,  and  will  always  be  diversely  estimated. 
The  people  who  were  starved  by  protection  knew  that 
they  were  hungry,  and  only  needed  to  be  told  why. 
The  discontent  of  the  unenfranchised  working  man  was 
created  in  part  by  Bright  and  his  helpers.  In  the 
motives  of  the  Reformers  there  was  necessarily  a  partisan 
as  well  as  a  patriotic  element;  the  new  votes  were 
wanted  for  party  purposes.     But  we   may  confidently 


Parliamentary  Reform.  127 

claim  that  Brig-ht's  zeal  for  democracy  was  as  little 
tainted  as  any  man's  could  be  with  the  spirit  of  faction 
or  ambition;  and  those  who  hold  his  purpose  to  have 
been  mistaken  may  be  safely  challeng-ed  to  admit  that 
his  intention  was  patriotic. 

It  is  impossible  to  suppose,  in  the  lig-ht  of  his  earlier 
speeches,  that  Bright  can  ever  have  been  entirely  satis- 
fied with  the  results  of  his  success.  The  speeches  of 
the  enthusiastic  leaders  of  any  victorious  movement  will 
always  provide  congenial  food  for  the  cynic.  It  would 
be  easy  to  treat  ironically  the  contrast  between  the 
bygone  ardour  of  the  unenfranchised  shouting  for  votes 
and  the  present  apathy  that  requires  the  mechanism  of 
associations  and  the  importunity  of  canvassers  to  push 
and  pull  the  voter  to  the  poll.  The  reflection  that  is 
borne  in  upon  the  reader  of  Hansard  is  that,  if  no  reform 
has  ever  done  a  tithe  of  the  harm  apprehended  by  its 
adversaries,  neither  has  it  accomplished  a  quarter  of  the 
good  predicted  by  its  advocates.  This  is  perhaps  part 
of  a  still  more  general  truth — that  politics  do  not  count 
for  so  much  as  politicians  suppose.  But  there  remains 
one  consideration  more,  that  we  must  reckon  not  only 
the  good  that  such  a  measure  has  done,  but  also  the  evil 
it  may  have  averted.  The  apathetic  policy  of  Palmer- 
ston,  scornful  of  the  multitude,  looking  for  public  opinion 
very  little  further  than  the  lobby  and  the  metropolitan 
clubs  and  newspapers,  and  setting  more  store  by  the 
chatter  of  a  Whig  lady's  salon  than  by  the  clamour  of  a 
mass  meeting  in  Manchester  or  Glasgow,  might,  if  it 
had  long-  survived  his  death,  have  been  disagreeably 
interrupted  by  disorder  or  by  something  like  revolution. 
One  may  reject  one-half  of  what  Bright  said  of  the 
delinquencies  of  the  unreformed  Parliament,  and  yet 
recognize  that  there  was  no  guarantee  in  its  constitution 
that  it  would  not  sooner  or  later  commit  some  disastrous 
error  of  the  sort  that  breeds  anarchy. 


128  John  Bright. 

Bright  always  maintained  that  he  was  a  sounder  Con- 
stitutionalist than  the  oligarchs;  and  the  ground  of  this 
claim  at  least  deserves  examination.  He  did  not,  accor- 
ding to  the  common  idea  of  demagogy,  call  upon  his 
clients,  whom  his  eloquence  could  have  moved  as  easily 
one  way  as  another,  to  overthrow  or  destroy  anything 
whatever;  he  showed  them  that  there  was  a  place  for 
them  in  the  Constitution,  and  made  them  content  to  ask 
for  admission,  not  as  men  storming  a  hostile  citadel,  but 
as  entermg  into  an  inheritance.  If  he  helped  to  create 
the  excitement,  his  authority  made  for  restraint  and 
order  when  it  was  at  its  height.  He  called  out  an  army 
of  a  million  indignant  men;  and  when  the  storm  had 
passed,  a  few  overthrow^n  palings  in  Hyde  Park  repre- 
sented all  the  material  damage  of  the  turmoil.  It  is 
admitted  that  democracy  was  inevitable,  and  could  not 
without  peril  have  been  long  delayed;  and  even  those 
who  regret  it  ought  to  be  grateful  that  at  the  critical 
time  the  leader  of  the  victorious  masses  was  a  man  so 
singularly  free  from  the  common  vices  and  common 
ambitions  of  the  demagogue. 


Chapter  VI. 
Ireland. 


The  Reform  Bill  of  1867  had  dealt  only  with  England. 
The  session  of  1868  was  partly  occupied  with  the  passage 
of  similar  Bills  for  Ireland  and  Scotland,  Disraeli,  who 
early  in  this  year  succeeded  Lord  Derby  as  Prime  Min- 
ister, refusing,  in  spite  of  several  defeats,  to  resign  or 
dissolve  until  he  had  completed  his  task  of  reconstructing 
the  representative  system.  An  appeal  to  the  new  con- 
stituencies was  imminent;   and  it  was  proper  that  the 


Ireland.  129 

Liberal  leaders  should  propound  some  leg-islative  enter- 
prise that  should  attract  the  support  of  the  new  and 
untried  electors.  It  was  not  yet  thought  necessary  to 
ask  the  working-classes,  who  now  formed  a  majority  in 
nearly  every  urban  constituency,  to  use  their  votes  to 
get  something  for  themselves;  and  a  generous  tribute 
was  offered  to  their  disinterestedness  when  Mr.  Glad- 
stone proposed  that  the  new  power  should  be  used  first 
of  all  to  redress  an  Irish  grievance. 

The  perennial  problems  of  Irish  discontent  had  recently 
been  forced  on  the  attention  of  politicians  by  a  series  of 
unhappy  events.  In  1865  had  occurred  the  disclosure 
of  the  plots  of  the  Irish  Republican  Brotherhood  of 
Fenians;  in  1866  the  Fenian  invasion  of  Canada;  in 
1867  Davitt's  attack  on  Chester  Castle,  the  rescue  of 
Fenian  prisoners  in  Manchester,  and  the  Irish  demon- 
stration of  sympathy  with  three  of  the  rescuing  party 
who  were  hanged  for  the  murder  of  a  policeman;  finally, 
in  December  of  the  same  year  came  the  attempt  of  Irish 
conspirators  to  blow  up  Clerkenwell  Prison. 

In  January,  1868,  Bright  wrote  to  an  Irish  correspon- 
dent: **For  twenty  years  I  have  always  said  that  the 
only  way  to  remedy  the  evils  of  Ireland  is  by  legislation 
on  the  Church  and  Land".  But  he  added:  ''To  strike 
down  an  established  church  and  to  abandon  the  theory 
of  our  territorial  system  by  one  Act  of  Parliament  would 
be  too  much  for  Parliament,  and  would  destroy  any 
Government  that  suggested  it.  Our  rulers,  though  un- 
comfortable, are  not  sufficiently  alarmed  to  yield.  The 
Whigs  are  almost  as  much  afraid  as  the  Tories  are  of 
questions  aff'ecting  the  Church  and  the  Land,  and  they 
seem  to  have  almost  no  courage.  The  English  people 
are  in  complete  ignorance  of  Irish  wrongs,  and  know 
little  or  nothing  of  the  real  condition  of  your  country." 
*'Mr.  Gladstone",  he  said  in  the  same  letter,  "hesitates, 
and  hardly  knows  how  far  to  go.      He  does  not  feel 

(  M  433  )  I 


130  John  Bright. 

himself  very  secure  as  leader  of  a  powerful  and  compact 
party." 

This  letter  proves  that,  despite  the  warmth  with  which 
Brig-ht  had  welcomed  Mr.  Gladstone's  leadership,  he  had 
not  yet  adequately  recognized  his  capacity  for  command 
or  his  zeal  for  reform.  It  also  suggests  that  Bright  did 
not  at  first  realize  how  much  nearer  he  himself  stood  to 
the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  party  since  the  extension  of 
th  electorate.  But  he  was  not  deterred  by  these  fore- 
bodings from  the  experiment  of  engaging  the  interest  of 
the  new  voters  in  the  Irish  question.  A  few  days  later 
he  devoted  a  long  speech  at  Birmingham  to  the  exposi- 
tion of  his  views  on  the  Irish  Church  and  the  Irish  Land 
Law.  This  speech  differed  from  his  earlier  exhortations 
to  his  constituents  in  exhibiting  more  of  the  thorough- 
ness of  the  practical  statesman,  and  less  of  the  vehemence 
of  the  agitator;  the  shadow  of  coming  official  responsi- 
bility seemed  already  to  have  fallen  on  the  orator.  But 
it  fully  achieved  its  purpose ;  and  we  may  fairly  suppose 
— unless  indeed  Bright  had  been  entirely  mistaken  in 
his  opinion  of  the  hesitation  of  his  leader — that  the 
success  of  this  speech  was  a  determining  cause  of  the 
bold  and  well-omened  stroke  by  which  Mr.  Gladstone, 
three  months  later,  committed  his  party  to  a  strenuous 
Irish  policy. 

Hitherto  we  have  omitted  any  account  of  Bright's 
earlier  dealings  with  the  Irish  question.  It  will  be 
convenient  at  this  point  to  justify  the  assertion  quoted 
above,  of  his  twenty  years'  advocacy  of  the  policy  that 
was  embodied  in  the  legislation  of  1869  and  1870. 

Bright  had  always  shown  a  facility  of  sympathy  with 
the  Irish  people  such  as,  at  least  in  the  earlier  half  of 
his  career,  was  not  common  among  English  politicians. 
He  was  curiously  successful  in  forging  graphic  phrases 
that  were  eagerly  accepted  by  Irish  patriots  as  reflecting 
the   national    sentiments    of  the  dolorous    island.      **  I 


Ireland.  131 

believe  that,  if  the  majority  of  the  people  of  Ireland 
counted  fairly  out  had  their  will,  and  if  they  had  the 
power,  they  would  unmoor  the  island  from  its  fastenings 
in  the  deep,  and  move  it  at  least  2000  miles  to  the  west." 
''When  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophet  prayed  in  his 
captivity,  he  prayed  with  his  window  open  towards 
Jerusalem.  The  followers  of  Mahomet  when  they  pray 
turn  their  faces  towards  Mecca.  When  the  Irish  peasant 
asks  for  food  and  freedom  and  blessing-,  his  eye  follows 
the  setting-  sun,  the  aspirations  of  his  heart  reach  beyond 
the  wide  Atlantic,  and  in  spirit  he  grasps  hands  with 
the  g-reat  Republic  of  the  West."  Nothing-  could  sug-- 
gest  more  felicitously  than  these  images  the  incongruity 
that  is,  it  may  be,  destined  still  to  baffle  the  wisdom  of 
many  generations  of  statesmen, — the  incongruity  be- 
tween the  political  union  inexorably  ordained  by  the 
disposition  of  territory  and  the  irrevocable  course  of 
history,  and  the  disunion  of  sentiment  that  has  been 
engendered  by  racial  antipathies  and  by  ancient  crimes. 
Bright  had  from  the  first  associated  himself  with  that 
section  of  the  Liberals  that  was  disposed  to  trace  Irish 
disaffection  to  the  establishment  of  a  Protestant  Church 
in  the  midst  of  a  Catholic  population.  Two  methods  of 
redress  were  already  under  discussion  when  he  entered 
public  life  —  the  disestablishment  of  the  Protestant 
Church,  and  the  concurrent  establishment  and  endow- 
ment of  the  Catholic  Church.  A  small  beginning  of  the 
second  scheme  had  actually  been  made  by  a  vote  of 
public  money  to  support  the  Catholic  College  at  May- 
nooth.  This  grant  was  regarded  as  an  equivalent  to 
the  regium  dommi,  the  grant  made  to  the  Irish  Presby- 
terian ministry  by  William  III.  as  a  reward  for  the 
support  he  had  received  from  the  Irish  dissenting  Pro- 
testants in  the  civil  war  that  followed  the  Revolution. 
To  the  Maynooth  Grant,  which  enabled  peasants  destined 
to  the  priesthood  to  learn  their  Latin  in  Ireland  without 


132  John  Bright. 

g-oingf  abroad,  many  observers  have  attributed  the  trans- 
formation of  the  kindly  and  genial  priest  who  laughs 
and  prays  in  the  pages  of  Lever  into  the  sullen  and 
underbred  tyrant  of  the  Meath  Elections. 

Bright  always  declared  for  disestablishment  and  dis- 
endowment,  and  missed  no  opportunity  of  enforcing  his 
opinion.  His  first  speech  on  any  Irish  question  was 
made  when  Peel  proposed  a  large  increase  of  the  May- 
nooth  Grant.  Bright  joined  Disraeli  in  opposing  this 
increase.  By  his  speech  and  vote  on  this  occasion  he 
separated  himself,  for  the  only  time  in  his  parliamentary 
life,  from  Cobden,  who  was  a  Churchman,  and  regarded 
the  question  from  another  point  of  view.  The  surprise 
that  has  been  expressed  at  this  vote  is  surely  unneces- 
sary. Bright  was  a  Nonconformist;  the  English  Non- 
conformists, who  also  possessed  colleges,  had  never 
asked  for  a  subsidy,  and,  if  they  had  done  so,  would 
certainly  have  been  rebuked  both  by  those  who  sup- 
ported and  those  who  opposed  the  grant  to  Maynooth. 
The  reasons  he  gave  are  quite  intelligible.  He  disap- 
proved of  any  expenditure  of  public  money  on  any 
ecclesiastical  institution.  He  saw  in  the  grant  the 
beginning  of  a  policy  of  endowing  the  priesthood;  and 
that  policy  was  certainly  in  the  mind  of  some  statesmen. 
He  believed  that  the  endowment  of  the  Catholic  priests 
in  Ireland  would  have  the  same  effect  which  he  attri- 
buted to  the  endowment  of  the  clergy  of  the  English 
Church;  that  it  would  make  them  allies  of  privilege,  and 
indifferent  to  the  wrongs  of  the  people  among  whom 
they  lived.  He  was  also  of  opinion  that  the  grant 
diverted  attention  from  the  real  causes  of  disaffection. 
Peel's  policy  in  short  missed  the  mark  at  which  it  aimed; 
and  the  grant  would  provide  a  new  and  shabby  excuse 
for  the  continuance  of  the  Protestant  establishment, 
which  was  the  real  root  of  the  evil,  so  far  as  that  evil 
grew  out  of  ecclesiastical  jealousy. 


Ireland.  133 

In  1852  Bright  put  before  the  public  a  scheme  of  dis- 
establishment in  an  elaborate  letter  addressed  to  Dr. 
Gray  of  Dublin.  He  proposed  a  Church  Property  Com- 
mission, which  should  gradually,  as  benefices  became 
vacant,  possess  itself  of  the  whole  property  of  the  Irish 
Church.  The  Commissioners  were  to  be  directed  to 
appropriate  certain  portions  of  the  fund  as  a  free  gift  to 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  and  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  These 
gifts  were  to  be  absolute  and  irrevocable.  The  gift  to 
the  Catholic  Church  was  to  consist  of  a  house  and  a  plot 
of  land  for  the  priest  in  every  parish;  the  cost  to  be,  at 
a  rough  estimate,  a  thousand  pounds  for  each  of  a 
thousand  parishes,  or  ;^i,ooo,ooo  in  all.  The  gifts  to 
the  other  two  churches  were  to  be  of  about  the  same 
value.  In  consideration  of  these  endowments  the  May- 
nooth  Grant  of  ;^26,ooo  and  the  regium  donum  of 
;^40,ooo  were  to  be  withdrawn.  Three  millions  being 
thus  spent  in  endowing  the  churches,  the  remainder  was 
to  be  a  fund  for  education  and  for  providing  free  libraries. 

This  scheme  was  sharply  criticised  by  the  Liberation 
Society;  it  was  indeed  hardly  consistent  with  those  rigid 
principles  of  political  nonconformity  of  which  Bright 
was  in  general  an  adherent,  or  with  his  own  argument 
against  the  Maynooth  Grant.  Despite  this  opposition 
he  repeated  his  proposals  sixteen  years  later  at  the  Bir- 
mingham meeting  already  mentioned.  He  expected  and 
deprecated  Nonconformist  opposition.  '*  I  hope",  he 
said,  '*  that  some  of  my  Nonconformist  friends  who  have 
a  very  strong  opinion  on  this  question,  and  perhaps  have 
not  looked  at  it  in  the  same  light  as  I  have,  will  have  a 
little  charity  for  me  when  I  say  that  it  would  not  be  just 
to  take  the  ;£"i 3,000,000  into  the  hands  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  throw  the  whole  of  the  present  Church  bare 
and  naked  upon  the  country."  In  the  same  temperate 
spirit  he  said  in  the  House  of  Commons  a  few  weeks 


134  John  Bright. 

later:  '*  When  you  are  about  to  make  a  change  which  is 
inevitable,  and  which  shocks  some,  disturbs  more,  and 
makes  hesitating-  people  hesitate  still  more,  it  is  a  great 
thing  if  you  can  make  the  past  slide  into  the  future  with- 
out any  great  jar,  and  without  any  great  shock  to  the 
feelings  of  the  people.  In  doing  these  things  the  Gov- 
ernment can  always  afford  to  be  gracious  to  those  whom 
they  are  obliged  to  disturb." 

Bright's  proposals  were  so  often  in  advance  of  public 
opinion  that  they  could  not  but  appear  to  his  critics 
violent  and  revolutionary.  But  the  sentences  just  quoted, 
with  their  strong  tincture  of  that  reasonableness  in  which 
Matthew  Arnold  found  Nonconformists  so  lamentably 
deficient,  illustrate  a  quality  of  his  mind  less  frequently 
displayed  than  the  thoroughness  which  was  so  exasper- 
ating to  less  resolute  politicians.  The  rigidity  of  his 
principles  of  action  seriously  narrowed  the  field  of  com- 
promise for  him;  but  within  that  field  he  was  not  always 
disposed  to  obstinacy. 

In  his  speeches  on  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish 
Church  Bright  could  do  little  more  than  repeat  reasons 
that  had  been  perceived  and  enforced  before  his  time, 
though  he  is  entitled  to  a  share  of  his  own  in  whatever 
credit  any  man  may  be  disposed  to  give  to  the  feat  of 
1869,  inasmuch  as  it  was  he  who  enlisted  the  sympathy 
of  the  new  voters  in  the  project  at  a  time  when  he  spoke 
to  them  with  an  authority  possessed  by  no  other  poli- 
tician. But  his  share  in  the  deliberations  that  led 
directly  to  the  Irish  Land  Act  of  1870,  and  indirectly  to 
many  later  enactments,  was  of  far  greater  importance; 
here,  at  any  rate,  he  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of  initiative. 
''From  first  to  last",  said  his  colleague,  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain, many  years  later,  "Mr.  Bright  laid  it  down  that 
there  could  be  no  satisfactory  solution  of  the  Irish  Land 
difficulty  which  did  not  give  facility  to  the  tenant  to 
become  the  absolute  owner  of  the  land  he   cultivates. 


Ireland.  135 

Every  provision  of  legislation  which  has  been  based  on 
this  principle  of  Mr.  Bright's  has  been  a  success."  This 
is  the  claim  we  have  now  to  substantiate. 

It  had  been  Bright's  practice  to  turn  to  account  the 
opportunities  afforded  by  the  Bills  suspending-  Habeas 
Corpus  in  Ireland,  or  permitting  extraordinary  methods 
of  enforcing  the  law,  by  descanting  upon  the  causes,  as 
he  understood  them,  of  the  disaffection  which  made  such 
disagreeable  precautions  necessary.  It  was  never  his 
custom  to  vote  against  measures  of  coercion  when  re- 
quired by  the  responsible  Government.  When  there- 
fore he  uttered,  after  long  experience,  his  famous  dictum, 
**  Force  is  no  remedy",  he  had  already  defined,  by  the 
action  he  had  consistently  taken,  the  exact  meaning  of 
that  excellent  maxim.  Lawlessness  was  as  abhorrent  to 
him  as  to  any  man;  he  was  willing  to  use  any  necessary 
force  rather  than  that  the  law  should  be  broken  with 
impunity;  but  he  always  held  that  it  was  the  second 
duty  of  legislators  confronted  by  an  outbreak  of  lawless- 
ness to  look  elsewhere  than  to  coercion  for  the  remedy 
of  disloyalty,  as  he  looked  elsewhere  than  to  the  native 
wickedness  of  the  law-breaker  for  its  remediable  causes. 

Bright's  sympathy  with  the  people  of  Ireland  was  at 
one  period  of  his  career  warmly  reciprocated,  and  he 
received  at  Dublin  a  welcome  rarely  accorded  there  to 
an  English  statesman.  But  with  the  Irish  members  his 
relations  were  often  by  no  means  cordial.  Both  they 
and  he  represented  sections  of  the  community  that  con- 
sidered themselves  unjustly  treated  by  the  legislature. 
Bright  and  the  English  Radicals  were  always  ready  to 
define  their  complaints  by  bills  or  resolutions.  The  Irish 
members  appeared  to  him  to  be  active  in  complaint  but 
indolent  in  devising  measures  of  relief.  **The  Irish 
members",  he  said  in  1847,  **  complain  very  justly  of  the 
past  legislation  of  this  House.  But  when  we  call  to 
mind  that  there  are   105  of  them  here,  of  whom  60  or 


136  John  Bright. 

70  are  of  Liberal  opinions,  and  that  above  30  of  them 
are  repealers  and  hold  very  strong-  views  in  regard  to 
the  mismanagfement  of  Irish  affairs  by  the  Imperial  Par- 
liament, I  think  we  have  a  right  to  complain  that  they 
have  not  laid  on  the  table  of  the  House  any  one  measure 
which  they  believe  to  be  necessary  to  the  prosperity  of 
their  country."  Two  years  later  he  spoke  of  the  inca- 
pacity and  disagreement  of  the  Irish  members  as  one  of 
the  greatest  misfortunes  under  which  Ireland  laboured; 
and  was  angrily  rebuked  by  Barron,  member  for  Water- 
ford,  who  declared  that  Ireland  had  been  brought  to 
ruin  and  misery  by  the  policy  of  the  Manchester  School. 

In  the  failure  of  helpful  advice  from  his  Irish  col- 
leagues. Bright,  as  one  of  those  English  politicians  that 
thought  some  other  remedy  than  force  to  be  wanted, 
was  obliged  to  seek  a  remedy  himself.  The  peculiar 
service  that  Bright  rendered  to  Ireland  was  that,  if  he 
was  not  the  first  to  look  for  the  remedy  of  discontent  in 
a  modification  of  the  Land  Law,  he  was  most  persistent 
in  thrusting  upon  the  view  of  the  country  and  of  Parlia- 
ment that  part  of  the  Irish  difiiculty  which  has  now  for 
many  years  been  recognized  by  common  consent  as  the 
most  important,  and  as  aff"ording  the  largest  hope  that 
it  will  not  be  found  insoluble.  Further,  he  was  for 
years  foremost,  if  not  alone,  in  putting  forward  that 
solution  of  the  agrarian  problem  which  for  thirty  years 
after  the  Reform  Act  has  been  actually  adopted  in  a 
series  of  legislative  experiments  by  both  the  great  par- 
ties in  the  State. 

**The  great  cause  of  Ireland's  calamities  is  that  Ire- 
land is  idle.  Ireland  is  idle  and  therefore  she  starves; 
Ireland  starves  and  therefore  she  rebels.  We  must 
choose  between  industry  and  anarchy.  I  defy  the 
House  to  give  peace  and  prosperity  to  that  country 
until  they  set  agoing  her  industry,  create  and  diffuse 
capital,  and  thus  establish  those  gradations  of  rank  and 


Ireland.  137 

condition  by  which  alone  the  whole  social  fabric  can  be 
held  together."  The  last  sentence  of  this  extract  from 
a  speech  delivered  in  1847  deserves  remark.  The  object 
of  Bright's  Irish  policy  was  to  bring  the  land  into  the 
possession  of  the  occupier,  and  so  to  promote  the  wealth 
of  a  country  dependent  on  agriculture  by  attracting 
capital  and  increasing  the  agricultural  production.  But 
he  foresaw  social  as  well  as  economical  advantage  in 
the  creation  of  a  middle -class  of  independent  farmers 
corresponding  to  the  manufacturing  middle -class  to 
which  he  himself  belonged.  He  wished  to  see  inter- 
mediate between  the  idle  aristocracy  and  the  labouring 
classes  a  body  of  yeomen,  industrious,  well-to-do, 
giving  employment  to  labour,  with  a  stake  of  their  own 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  country,  and  with  a  strong 
motive  for  the  encouragement  of  order.  ''What  you 
want",  he  said  in  Dublin  in  1866,  ''is  to  restore  to  Ire- 
land a  middle-class  proprietary  of  the  soil."  "  I  be- 
lieve",  he  told  the  House  of  Commons  in  1867,  **that 
you  can  establish  a  class  of  moderate  proprietors  who 
will  form  a  body  intermediate  between  the  great  owners 
of  land  and  those  who  are  absolutely  landless,  which 
will  be  of  immense  service  in  giving  steadiness,  loyalty, 
and  peace  to  the  whole  population  of  the  island."  A 
great  gulf  had  been  created  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
conquest  between  the  owner  and  the  occupier;  the  pro- 
blem was  to  build  a  bridge  over  that  gulf.  The  solution 
of  the  social  and  of  the  economical  problem  seemed  to 
him  to  be  the  same ;  but  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  social 
problem  was  always  present  to  his  mind  even  when  the 
attention  of  England  had  been  directed  to  Ireland  by 
economic  disasters. 

When  Bright  first  interested  himself  in  the  Irish 
question,  Ireland  was  still  labouring  under  the  evils 
which  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act  of  1848  was  in- 
tended to  alleviate.      "There  were",  as  he  said,  "vast 


138  John  Bright. 

tracts  of  land  which,  if  left  in  the  hands  of  nominal  or 
bankrupt  owners,  would  never  to  the  end  of  time  support 
the  population  which  oug-ht  to  live  on  them."  ''It  is 
the  absence  of  all  demand  for  labour  that  constitutes  the 
real  evil  of  Ireland.  The  land  there  enjoys  a  perpetual 
Sabbath.  There  is  the  land;  and  there  is  labour  enough 
to  bringf  it  into  cultivation.  But  such  is  the  state  in 
which  the  land  is  placed  that  capital  cannot  be  employed 
upon  it.  You  have  created  such  a  monopoly  of  land  by 
your  laws  and  your  mode  of  dealing  with  it  as  to  render 
it  alike  a  curse  to  the  people  and  to  the  owners  of  it. 
Why  should  land  be  tied  up  any  more  than  any  other 
raw  material?"  All  these  things  were  said  by  Bright 
twelve  years  or  more  before  the  first  serious  attempt  to 
grapple  with  the  problem. 

In  1847  and  for  some  years  after,  Bright  was  content 
to  ask  that  every  obstacle  that  legislation  could  remove 
from  the  distribution  of  land  should  be  removed.  He 
desired  a  simplification  of  conveyance  and  titles,  a 
parliamentary  title  for  the  purchaser,  a  restriction  of  the 
power  to  make  settlements  in  favour  of  unborn  heirs, 
a  remission  of  all  stamp  duties  on  transfer  of  land,  the 
abolition  of  entails,  and  a  repeal  of  the  rights  of  primo- 
geniture in  the  administration  of  intestate  estates. 

In  1850  he  prepared  a  draft  of  a  short  Bill,  after  an 
independent  study  of  the  evidence  and  report  of  the 
Devon  Commission,  which  had  sat  from  1843  to  1845. 
This  Bill  was  shown  to  the  Irish  members,  and  was 
regarded  favourably  by  a  few  of  them  on  either  side  of 
the  House;  but  the  majority  refused  any  support. 
Russell  also  saw  the  draft,  and  submitted  it  to  Irish 
officials  with  a  Bill  of  his  own.  Russell's  Bill  was 
regarded  as  establishing  a  machinery  too  complex  to 
work  smoothly;  and  that  suggested  by  Bright  also  failed 
to  get  any  official  favour.  Politicians  in  general  were 
indisposed  to  touch  the  question  at  all.      Bright  attri- 


Ireland.  139 

buted  the  reluctance  of  the  governing-  classes  to  grasp 
the  nettle  firmly  to  the  presence  in  every  Government  of 
persons  who  were  themselves  land-owners  in  Ireland. 
Although  the  measures  proposed  would  do  no  injury  to 
the  fortunes  of  Irish  land-owners,  they  might  diminish 
the  political  power  which  landed  property  conferred 
even  upon  those  who  were  being  dragged  by  their 
unlucky  inheritance  to  financial  disaster.  **  The  ques- 
tion is,"  he  said  in  1852,  ''can  the  cats  wisely  and 
judiciously  legislate  for  the  mice?" 

The  Bill  which  Bright  had  in  mind  was  never  sub- 
mitted to  the  judgment  of  Parliament.  He  thought  it 
better,  he  said,  when  challenged  to  take  it  out  of  his 
pocket,  that  a  man  who  was  not  connected  with  Ireland 
should  not  bring  forward  a  measure  which  did  not  meet 
with  the  approval  of  the  Irish  members.  But  when  in 
1852  W.  S.  Crawford,  member  for  Rochdale,  intro- 
duced a  Bill  which,  anticipating  an  important  provision 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bill  of  1870,  proposed  to  give  legal 
sanction  to  the  Ulster  Custom,  Bright  put  in  an  urgent 
plea  for  doing  something  in  the  face  of  the  agrarian 
crimes.  "It  is  in  the  eternal  decrees  of  Providence  that 
so  long  as  the  population  of  a  country  is  prevented  from 
the  possibility  of  possessing  any  portion  of  their  native 
soil  by  legal  enactments  and  legal  chicanery,  these  out- 
rages should  be  committed,  were  it  but  as  beacons  and 
warnings  to  call  the  legislature  to  a  sense  of  the  duty  it 
owes  to  the  country  which  it  governs."  Such  a  reading 
of  the  moral  of  agrarian  outrage,  if  not  of  its  final  cause, 
is  now  the  merest  commonplace ;  but  forty-five  years  ago 
it  required  all  the  courage  of  a  man  hardened  against 
vituperation  to  utter  such  a  sentiment. 

The  lasting  feud  between  Bright  and  the  landed 
aristocracy  of  England  made  it  natural  that  he  should 
look  to  the  landlords  and  the  land  system  for  the  causes 
of  Irish  discontent,  and  natural  also  that  his  testimony 


140  John  Bright. 

should  be  treated  as  prejudiced,  and  his  motives  sus- 
pected. It  is  curious  to  observe  that  he  had  to  defend 
himself  agfainst  the  charge  of  designing-  confiscation, 
robbery,  and  what  not,  when  he  was  only  propounding 
schemes  which  have  since  been  not  only  accepted  but 
developed  by  the  emulation  of  statesmen  of  all  parties. 
In  point  of  fact  he  was  conservative  of  the  rights  of 
property,  and  in  his  land-purchase  scheme  always  postu- 
lated the  consent  of  the  land-owner.  *'  If  it  is  intended 
by  a  Bill  with  this  title  ",  he  said  of  a  Bill  promised  by 
an  Irish  member,  **to  vest  the  ownership  of  land  in  the 
present  occupier,  I  believe  that  this  House  will  never 
pass  it ;  and  if  it  did,  it  would  prove  most  fatal  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  country." 

His  own  scheme  of  land-purchase  was  explained  in 
detail  to  the  people  of  Dublin  in  1866,  and  to  the  House 
of  Commons  in  a  speech  delivered  early  in  1868,  on  the 
occasion  of  a  motion  for  a  committee  of  the  whole  House 
to  consider  the  state  of  Ireland.  He  proposed  to  entrust 
five  millions  of  public  money  to  Commissioners,  who 
should  purchase  by  agreement  the  Irish  estates  of  Eng- 
lish or  absentee  landlords.  The  sale  was  not  to  be 
forced,  except  in  the  case  of  lands  belonging  to  the  City 
Companies ;  and  he  did  not  propose  any  purchase  of  the 
land  of  owners  who  resided  on  their  estates.  He  assumed 
that  the  land  could  be  bought  at  twenty-five  years'  pur- 
chase ;  that  the  tenants  could  pay  five  per  cent  annually 
on  the  purchase-money ;  and  that  the  Government  might 
without  loss  be  content  with  three  and  a  half  per  cent 
interest.  The  accumulation  of  the  balance  of  one  and 
a  half  per  cent  would  make  the  tenant  the  absolute 
owner  in  thirty-five  years.  These  were  exactly  the  terms 
adopted  in  the  land-purchase  clauses  of  the  Act  of  1870. 
He  believed  that  there  was  in  Ireland  a  great  amount 
of  saved  money,  which  the  tenants,  for  lack  of  security, 
would   not   invest   in   their  farms.      This   saved   money 


Ireland.  141 

would  at  once  be  used  as  capital  for  the  improvement 
of  the  land.  *'  I  would  negotiate  with  land-owners  who 
are  willing  to  sell,  and  with  tenants  who  are  willing  to 
buy.  I  would  make  the  land  the  great  savings-bank 
for  the  future  tenantry  of  Ireland." 

Such  was  the  germ  of  the  legislation  for  the  creation 
of  a  class  of  small  proprietors  in  Ireland  which  has  since 
been  developed  in  a  long  succession  of  enactments  with 
results  the  value  of  which  must  still  be  left  to  the  judg- 
ment of  posterity. 

The  speech  that  has  just  been  quoted  included  a 
renewal  of  the  plea  for  disestablishment.  It  contained 
also  another  of  those  happy  comparisons  which  have 
passed  into  political  proverbs.  Lord  Stanley  had  sug- 
gested, as  a  sort  of  alternative  for  disestablishment,  the 
endowment  of  a  Roman  Catholic  University  in  Ireland. 
Bright  thought  this  proposal  ''grotesque  and  imbecile", 
and  added  that  Stanley  reminded  him  of  the  man  men- 
tioned by  Addison  "who  was  not  a  Cabinet  Minister, 
but  only  a  mountebank",  and  who  '''set  up  a  stall,  and 
sold  pills  that  were  very  good  against  the  earthquake  ". 
It  was  a  rather  dangerous  jest  in  the  mouth  of  a  man 
who  had  a  prescription  of  his  own  for  Irish  discontent. 
The  pill  of  disestablishment  was  administered ;  but  the 
Irish  earthquakes  have  continued. 

A  fortnight  after  this  debate  Mr.  Gladstone  moved 
three  resolutions  committing  the  House  to  the  disestab- 
lishment and  disendowment  of  the  Irish  Church.  The 
debate  and  division  proved  that  the  fear  Bright  had 
expressed  a  few  weeks  before,  that  there  was  no  man 
strong  enough  to  unite  the  party  on  so  great  a  question, 
had  been  too  timid.  The  Cave  was  deserted,  and  the 
Adullamites  joined  the  hosts  of  Israel  against  the  Philis- 
tines. ''The  people  of  three  kingdoms",  said  Bright, 
"  are  waiting  with  anxious  suspense  for  the  solution  of 
this  question.     Ireland  waits  and  longs  for  a  great  act 


142  John  Bright. 

of  reconciliation.  England  and  Scotland  are  eager  to 
make  atonement  for  past  crimes  or  past  errors."  He 
made  effective  use  of  a  species  of  argument  very  familiar 
to  readers  of  his  later  speeches.  He  set  up  against  the 
predictions  of  evil  v^hich  the  opponents  of  disestablish- 
ment had  uttered,  the  failure  of  former  vaticinations  of 
the  same  oracles.  **  You  have  always  lions  in  the  path. 
But  when  you  have  seen  and  handled  them,  these  things 
are  found  after  all  to  be  only  hobgoblins.  You  have 
learned  that  they  are  perfectly  harmless ;  and  when  you 
thought  we  were  doing  you  harm  and  upsetting  the 
Constitution,  you  have  found  that  after  all  we  were  doing 
you  good,  and  that  the  Constitution  was  rather  stronger 
than  it  was  before."  The  colonies  were  more  easily 
governed  and  more  loyal  since  the  changes  in  the  colo- 
nial system  brought  about  by  Molesworth  and  Hume. 
The  revenue  was  larger  since  the  tariff  was  simplified. 
Free-trade  had  been  a  frightful  monster;  but  the  land, 
which,  it  was  predicted,  would  become  valueless  and  go 
out  of  cultivation,  was  selling  at  a  higher  rate  in  the 
market  than  it  had  ever  touched  before.  The  Balance 
of  Power,  once  the  beginning  and  end  of  our  foreign 
policy,  was  forgotten;  yet  England  was  as  much  re- 
spected as  when  she  was  ready  to  meddle  with  every 
stupid  quarrel  on  the  Continent.  Only  the  year  before, 
the  Conservatives  had  boldly  faced  another  hobgoblin; 
and  Disraeli  would  agree  that  there  was  nothing  to  be 
afraid  of,  and  that  Parliament  would  henceforth  be  more 
strong  and  more  venerated  by  the  people  than  it  had 
ever  been  before.  The  argument  is,  of  course,  merely 
rhetorical;  it  dissolves  at  the  first  touch  of  the  com- 
monest logical  tests,  and  it  is  evident  that  it  is  equally 
available  in  the  defence  of  any  proposal  whatsoever. 
But  it  was  always  effective ;  and  Bright,  as  a  successful 
slayer  of  hobgoblins,  had  a  better  right  than  most  men 
to  use  such  a  plea. 


Ireland.  143 

The  division  on  the  first  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  resolu- 
tions gave  a  majority  of  sixty-five  in  his  favour  and 
against  the  Government.  The  conduct  of  the  Govern- 
ment after  this  defeat  raised  a  grave  constitutional 
question,  which  was  discussed  with  much  heat.  Dis- 
raeli had,  when  defeated  in  committee  on  the  Reform 
Bill,  escaped  the  usual  consequences  of  defeat  by  accept- 
ing the  amendments ;  but  when  the  Irish  Church  resolu- 
tion was  carried  against  him,  he  was  put  in  a  position 
in  which  the  unwritten  law  gave  him  only  the  alternative 
of  resigning  in  favour  of  the  victor,  or  of  submitting  the 
question  at  issue  to  the  country  by  a  dissolution.  But 
to  dissolve  Parliament  at  once  would  have  been  to  appeal 
to  the  unreformed  constituencies  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
new  voters;  and  Disraeli  did  not  conceive  that,  when 
precluded  by  so  rare  an  accident  from  dissolution,  he 
was  restricted  to  the  alternative  of  resignation.  He 
therefore  resolved  to  postpone  the  dissolution  till  the 
Reform  Bills  of  the  year  were  carried,  and  the  new 
electorate  properly  constituted.  His  refusal  to  resign 
was  sharply  criticised  by  the  Opposition.  The  constitu- 
tional mode  of  government,  said  Bouverie,  member  for 
Kilmarnock,  a  Liberal  authority  on  such  points,  was 
that  ''the  House  of  Commons  gave  its  support  to 
the  Government,  and  the  Government  represented  the 
Crown  " ;  but  if  Disraeli's  views  were  carried  out  there 
would  be  "  a  renewal  of  those  differences  between  the 
Crown  and  the  House  of  Commons  which  all  who  take 
an  interest  in  good  government  must  have  hoped  had 
ceased  for  ever  ". 

In  these  difficult  circumstances  Disraeli  thought  proper 
to  give  an  unusually  detailed  account  of  his  discussion 
with  the  Queen,  using  language  in  which  Bright  dis- 
covered *'a  mixture  of  pompousness  and  servility". 
His  narrative  appeared  to  the  Opposition  to  imply  that 
he  had  left  it  to  the  Queen's  personal  discretion  to  decide 


144  John  Bright. 

whether  he  should  resigri,  and  so  to  throw  upon  her  the 
responsibiUty  which  the  Constitution  imposed  on  himself, 
and  to  put  her  in  the  position  of  seeming  to  keep  in 
office  by  her  own  will  a  Government  opposed  to  the 
policy  which  the  Commons  had  decreed.  If  this  inter- 
pretation, which  was  disputed  by  the  supporters  of  the 
Government,  was  correct,  a  grave  error  had  been  com- 
mitted. Bright,  who  seems  to  have  suspected  that  some 
manoeuvre  was  contemplated  by  which  Disraeli  would 
take  the  settlement  of  the  Irish  Church  question,  as  he 
had  taken  Reform,  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Liberal  party, 
gave  voice  to  the  indignation  of  the  Liberals  at  the  use 
Disraeli  had  made  of  the  name  of  the  Queen.  He  *' feared 
that  Disraeli  had  not  stated  all  that  it  was  his  duty  to 
state  in  the  interview  he  had  had  with  his  sovereign  ". 
'*The  minister  who  deceives  his  sovereign  is  as  guilty 
as  the  conspirator  who  would  dethrone  her."  He  added, 
amidst  a  hurricane  of  cheers  from  the  Opposition :  *'  Let 
me  tell  hon.  gentlemen  opposite,  and  the  right  hon. 
gentleman  in  particular,  that  any  man  in  this  country 
who  puts  his  sovereign  in  the  front  of  a  great  struggle 
like  this,  who  points  to  the  Irish  people  and  says  from 
the  floor  of  this  House,  '  Your  Queen  holds  the  flag 
under  which  we,  the  enemies  of  religious  equality  and 
justice  to  Ireland,  are  marshalled ',  is  guilty  of  a  high 
crime  and  misdemeanour  against  the  sovereign  and 
against  his  country;  and  there  is  no  honour,  there  is 
no  reputation,  there  is  no  glory,  there  is  no  future  name 
that  any  minister  can  gain  by  conduct  like  this  which 
will  acquit  him  to  posterity  of  one  of  the  most  grievous 
off'ences  against  the  country  that  a  prime  minister  can 
possibly  commit".  Whether  or  not  the  occasion  justified 
language  of  this  degree  of  vehemence,  a  strong  protest 
was  necessary,  lest  a  highly  dangerous  precedent  should 
be  set  up. 

Parliament  was  dissolved  in  November,   and   Bright 


Ireland. 


145 


went  to  Birmingham  to  figrht  for  his  seat  under  condi- 
tions of  some  doubt.  Birmingham  was  one  of  the  few 
constituencies  the  soHdity  of  whose  representation  was 
endangered  by  the  minority  clause  in  the  new  Act. 
That  clause  had  been  accepted  by  the  Commons  against 
his  protest,  and  it  may  be  suspected  that  it  was  passed 
partly  for  the  purpose  of  giving  annoyance  to  him. 
Two  local  Conservatives  of  repute  were  nominated 
against  the  three  Liberal  candidates;  but  the  provision 
that  was  to  give  him  a  Conservative  colleague  was  easily 
defeated,  the  Liberals  securing  nearly  three-fourths  of 
the  recorded  votes.  Birmingham  is  distinguished  by  the 
fidelity  of  its  political  attachments ;  for  during  the  whole 
of  its  parliamentary  history  it  has  happened  only  twice 
that  a  member  nominated  for  re-election  has  been  out- 
voted at  the  poll. 

Bright's  constituency  was  as  yet  only  slightly  affected 
by  the  process,  dating  from  the  settlement  of  the  Corn- 
law  question,  that  may  perhaps  be  called  the  torification 
of  the  middle -classes — a  process  that  at  this  election 
produced  some  surprising  results  in  his  own  county  of 
Lancashire.  The  working-classes  in  general  were  dis- 
posed to  vote  for  the  Liberal  candidates.  **  For  thirty 
years",  said  a  Birmingham  working  man  to  a  Conserva- 
tive canvasser,  '  I  have  been  trying  to  get  this  vote. 
For  thirty  years  you  have  been  trying  for  me  not  to  get 
it.  I  shall  not  give  it  to  you  the  first  time."  The  small 
loaf  and  the  big  loaf  were  still  the  most  persuasive  of 
emblematical  arguments.  Bright  himself  had  established 
a  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  artisans  of  Birmingham 
which  was  never  weakened.  He  did  not  live  among 
them;  he  took  no  interest  in  their  local  concerns;  his 
visits  were  not  frequent,  and  not  many  of  his  constituents 
made  personal  acquaintance  with  him.  But  when  he 
came,  he  always  gave  them  the  best  of  his  wisdom  and 
eloquence.    No  one  who  heard  it  will  ever  forget  the  great 

(M433)  K 


146  John  Bright. 

roar  of  cheers  that  went  up  year  by  year  when  the  white 
head  of  the  people's  tribune  appeared  on  the  platform  of 
the  Town  Hall.  His  annual  speech  was  to  many  a 
hard-wroug-ht  man  one  of  the  great  events  and  chief 
enjoyments  of  the  year.  Each  man  was  proud  of  his 
share  in  so  distinguished  a  representation ;  they  listened 
to  him  with  the  unquestioning  reverence  of  discipleship; 
and  they  were  never  wearied  of  the  punning  motto, 
'*  Honour  Bright". 

The  November  returns  decided  at  once  the  fate  of  the 
Irish  Church  and  of  the  Conservative  Government. 
Disraeli  immediately  resigned,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  be- 
came for  the  first  time  Prime  Minister.  In  accordance 
with  general  expectation  Bright  was  invited  to  join  the 
Ministry.  He  accepted  after  hesitation  and  with  reluc- 
tance. His  work  had  not  been  such  as  to  satisfy  him- 
self that  he  was  well  fitted  for  official  life;  he  already 
suffered  from  a  constitutional  indisposition  for  steady 
industry  which  yielded  only  to  the  pressure  of  a  loud 
call  of  duty;  after  saying  exactly  what  he  thought  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  it  is  probable  that  he  did  not  relish 
the  necessary  reticence  of  office;  his  habits  of  life  were 
domestic,  and  he  was  easily  wearied  by  the  turmoil  of 
London  life.  He  declined  the  arduous  responsibility  of 
the  Indian  Secretaryship,  and  accepted  office  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Trade  only  when  the  urgency  of  his 
chief  was  reinforced  by  the  strong  persuasion  of  his 
private  friends.  The  reunion  of  his  party,  of  which  he 
had  almost  despaired  after  the  experience  of  the  Cave 
and  the  Tea-room,  was  made  ostentatiously  complete 
when  Bright  and  Lowe,  the  duellists  of  1866,  sat  more 
or  less  lovingly  together  in  the  same  Cabinet. 

Bright  performed  the  functions  of  his  office  with 
punctuality  and  acceptance,  but  without  distinction. 
His  value  to  the  Government  lay  in  the  confidence  which 
his   presence  inspired    among  the  large  section  of  the 


Ireland.  147 

party  in  the  country  whose  political  creed  was  contained 
in  his  speeches.  Those  who  expected  that  his  counsels 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  Cabinet  would  tend  to  disunion 
were  entirely  disappointed.  The  passionate  orator  of 
the  mass  meeting-s  proved  himself  the  most  reasonable 
and  conciliatory  of  disputants  in  the  council -chamber. 
''It  is  remarkable,"  said  his  colleague,  Lord  Granville, 
after  his  death,  "considering  his  vigour  and  the  enthu- 
siasm of  his  character,  how  great  was  the  moderation 
of  the  advice  he  gave  his  colleagues.  I  never  knew  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet  who  acted  more  as  a  peacemaker 
among"  his  colleagues." 

The  session  of  1869  was  occupied  in  discussing  the 
details  of  the  Irish  Church  Bill,  Those  details  varied 
considerably  from  those  which  had  been  twice — in  1852 
and  again  in  1868 — sketched  by  Bright  himself.  The 
liberal  terms  offered,  for  the  sake  of  a  speedy  settlement, 
for  the  commutation  of  vested  interests,  with  other  pay- 
ments which  Bright  had  overlooked,  made  the  cost  of 
compensation  to  the  evicted  church  far  larger  than  he 
had  anticipated.  But  except  that  the  Maynooth  Grant 
and  the  regiiim  donum  were  commuted,  there  were  no 
grants  to  the  other  churches.  Bright,  however,  was 
content  with  disestablishment  on  any  terms;  and  the 
conduct  of  the  Bill  was  left,  as  it  may  fairly  be  assumed 
that  its  preparation  was  left,  to  the  Prime  Minister, 
whose  skill  in  grasping  and  expounding  a  complex 
scheme  was  unequalled. 

The  main  question  having  confessedly  been  already 
referred  to  and  decided  by  the  country,  the  debate  on 
the  second  reading  was  not  so  much  deliberative  as  an 
occasion  for  the  display  of  epideictic  oratory.  Bright 
contributed  a  speech  which  was  regarded  at  the  time  as 
one  of  his  most  successful  efforts.  It  is  carefully  elabor- 
ated, and  abounds  in  all  the  skill  of  a  resourceful  rhe- 
torician;  but  modern  readers  will  probably  agree  that 


148  John   Bright. 

Bright's  eloquence  is  more  impressive  when  he  is  defend- 
ing- an  unpopular  cause  against  an  adverse  audience, 
than  when  he  was,  as  now,  defending  a  foregone  con- 
clusion, and  embellishing  a  case  that  had  longf  ago — by 
Macaulay,  for  example,  in  1845 — been  exhaustively 
stated.  In  a  speech  made  on  such  an  occasion  there 
must  needs  be  an  air  as  of  conscious  art,  which  is  alto- 
gether absent  from  the  eloquence,  spontaneous  and  as 
it  were  inevitable,  of  the  speeches  on  the  Russian  war. 

He  showed  that  dexterity  which  the  House  of  Com- 
mons encourages  more  than  any  other  school  of  oratory, 
of  turning  against  his  antagonists  their  own  phrases  and 
sentiments.  The  Irish  Church  had  been  called  a  light 
of  the  Reformation.  *'This  light  of  the  Reformation," 
said  Bright,  ''  sustained  by  privilege  and  fanned  by  the 
hot  breath  of  faction,  has  not  been  so  much  a  helpful 
light  as  a  scorching  fire  which  has  burned  up  almost 
everything  g-ood  and  noble  in  the  country.  Industry  and 
charity  and  peace  and  loyalty  have  perished  in  the 
flames."  One  of  the  supporters  of  the  establishment 
had  remarked  that  ministers  of  voluntary  churches  were 
rather  a  low  class.  *'  I  think",  retorted  Bright,  ''that 
many  prophets  of  old  were  graziers.  The  apostles  were 
fishermen,  and  theirs  was  a  religion  to  which  not  many 
mighty,  not  many  noble,  were  called."  But  the  passage 
of  his  speech  that  has  most  permanent  interest  was  his 
reply  to  the  stricture,  elicited  by  an  often-quoted  admis- 
sion of  Mr.  Gladstone's,  that  the  new  Irish  policy  was 
due  to  the  Fenian  outragfes.  If  this  were  so,  said 
Bright,  it  was  only  another  proof  that  it  was  difficult  to 
make  great  reforms  unless  under  circumstances  that 
absolutely  forced  them  upon  the  attention  of  Parliament. 
**  You  know  very  well  that  the  Catholic  Association  led 
to  Catholic  Emancipation ;  that  the  dethronement  of  the 
Bourbons  brought  about  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832;  that 
the  desperate  condition  of  affairs   in   the  West    Indies 


Ireland.  149 

freed  the  slaves  in  the  English  colonies ;  that  the  famine 
in  Ireland  was  an  Irresistible  argument  to  bring  about 
the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law;  that  the  mutiny  in  India 
drove  the  House  immediately  and  without  consideration 
to  abolish  the  East  India  Company;  and,  sir,  if  I  were 
to  come  down  to  a  later  time,  I  might,  speaking  of  what 
took  place  in  1867,  ask  the  right  hon.  gentleman  and  his 
colleagues  what  were  the  cries  that  induced  them  to  be  en- 
thusiastic in  support  of  a  measure  of  household  suffrage." 
Bright  took  very  little  part  in  the  discussions  of  the 
Committee.  But  on  the  question  of  the  provision  of 
glebe  lands  for  the  disestablished  clergy,  an  amendment 
being  moved  that  seemed  to  agree  better  than  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Bill  with  the  plan  he  had  proposed,  he 
was  obliged  to  explain  the  disappearance  of  his  own 
scheme.  That  scheme  had  been  of  the  nature  of  a  com- 
promise between  the  devotion  of  the  Church  property 
to  secular  purposes  adopted  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  the 
plan,  still  favoured  by  Russell,  of  endowing  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  Ulster,  and  the  Roman  Church  in 
Leinster,  Munster,  and  Connaught.  Bright  said  that 
the  terms  of  the  Resolutions  of  the  preceding  session 
had  precluded  the  Cabinet  from  considering  his  scheme 
when  the  Bill  was  drafting;  and  that  he  had  not  sub- 
mitted it  to  the  House  when  the  Resolutions  were  under 
discussion  because  he  had  already  found  that  ''the  basis 
he  had  proposed  was  not  acceptable  to  the  House ", 
that  it  'Svas  regarded  by  many  as  unreasonable  and 
unjust",  and  was  "distasteful  to  many  people  in  the 
Church  and  in  general  to  Nonconformists  ".  It  may  be 
said  that  the  scheme  was  a  compromise  designed  to 
make  the  feat  of  disestablishment  easier  at  a  time  when 
it  appeared  to  be  difficult,  and  therefore  not  wanted 
when  the  difficulty  disappeared.  But  the  speeches 
already  quoted  seem  to  prove,  if  due  respect  be  paid  to 
Bright's  acknowledged  candour,  that,  had  he  not  failed 


150  John  Bright. 

to  win  support,  he  would  have  preferred  his  own  plan 
to  that  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  Matthew  Arnold  (whose 
father  is  cited  by  Russell  as  an  early  advocate  of  con- 
current endowment)  wrote  at  this  time  that  *'the  Non- 
conformists were  actuated  by  antipathy  to  endowments 
and  not  by  antipathy  to  the  injustice  and  irrationality 
of  the  present  appropriation  of  Church  property  in  Ire- 
land ",  and  that  *'the  moving-  power  by  which  the 
Liberal  party  were  now  operating-  the  overthrow  of  the 
Irish  establishment  was  this  antipathy  and  not  the  sense 
of  reason  and  justice ".  He  ought  to  have  excepted 
Bright  from  this  taunt.  But  the  history  of  the  Educa- 
tion Bill  of  the  next  year  proves  that  Arnold  exaggerated 
the  weight  of  Nonconformist  counsels  in  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  Ministry. 

There  was  a  general  expectation  that  Bright  would 
sooner  or  later  break  through  the  decorous  reserve,  and 
say  somethings  inconsistent  with  the  moderation,  which 
were  at  that  period  of  our  history  supposed  to  be  incum- 
b(mt  on  Cabinet  Ministers.  The  expected  opportunity 
came  in  the  month  of  June,  when  he  was  provoked,  by 
the  indiscretion  of  those  who  predicted  that  the  House 
of  Lords  would  try  to  reverse  the  verdict  of  the  elec- 
torate and  the  Commons,  into  writing  a  letter  threaten- 
ing- constitutional  changes  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
Peers  if  they  should  obstruct  the  Bill.  They  would, 
he  said,  stimulate  discussion  on  important  questions 
which,  but  for  their  infatuation,  might  have  slumbered 
for  many  years.  By  throwing  themselves  athwart  the 
course  of  the  nation,  they  might  m.eet  with  accidents 
not  pleasant  for  them  to  think  of.  The  Liberal  leaders 
in  both  Houses  were  challenged  to  repudiate  the  letter; 
but  Lord  Granville  and  Mr.  Gladstone  found  no  difficulty 
in  steering  a  middle  course  between  embracing  and 
disavowing  the  sentiments  of  their  colleague. 

Many  years  later,  in  somewhat  similar  circumstances^ 


Ireland.  151 

Bright  repeated  this  menace.  ''  The  veto  of  the  House 
of  Lords",  he  wrote  in  1884,  after  the  rejection  of  the 
County  Franchise  Bill,  **is  a  constant  insult  to  the 
House  of  Commons;  and  if  the  freedom  of  our  people 
is  not  a  pretence  and  a  sham,  some  limit  must  be  placed 
upon  a  power  which  is  chiefly  manifested  in  or  by  its 
hostility  to  the  true  interests  of  the  nation.  A  Parlia- 
ment controlled  by  hereditary  Peers  is  no  better,  perhaps 
it  is  worse,  than  a  Parliament  influenced  by  and  con- 
trolled by  a  despotic  monarch." 

If  we  consider  the  strong  antipathy  to  privilege  and 
to  aristocracy  which  was  inbred  in  Bright's  nature  by 
his  religious  creed  of  equality,  and  fostered  by  that  long 
struggle  against  the  land-owners  which  gave  a  lasting 
bias  to  all  his  political  career,  these  momentary  out- 
breaks of  indignation  are  really  less  remarkable  than 
his  habitual  reticence  in  regard  to  the  privileges  of  the 
hereditary  chamber.  He  was  for  years  the  one  man  who 
could,  had  he  chosen,  have  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a 
crusade  against  the  authority  of  the  Lords.  Like  other 
democratic  Liberals,  he  often  used  language  which 
seemed  to  lead  him  to  the  very  verge  of  such  an  enter- 
prise. That  he  did  not  go  further  than  an  occasional 
and  a  conditional  menace  is  another  proof  of  the  sin- 
cerity of  his  frequent  professions  of  aversion  from  violent 
constitutional  change,  just  as  the  tolerance  of  the  Eng- 
lish masses  for  that  institution  is  the  most  impressive 
example  of  the  conservatism  that  distinguishes  English 
from  continental  democracy.  Bright  had  no  zeal  for 
artistic  perfection  in  politics;  he  attacked  unsparingly 
anything,  however  venerable,  that  appeared  to  him  evil 
in  practice,  but  of  mere  anomalies  he  was  curiously 
tolerant,  so  long  as  he  found  them  practically  tolerable. 
On  this  occasion  he  was  rude  to  the  Peers,  not  because 
they  were  Peers,  but  because  he  supposed  them  to  be 
meditating  unconstitutional  behaviour, 


152  John  Bright. 

In  spite  of  this  provocation  a  majority  of  the  Lords 
accepted  the  verdict  of  the  country,  the  influence  of  the 
Court  being-  used  to  avert  a  crisis.  A  dispute  between 
the  two  Houses  over  certain  details  was,  after  some 
days  of  anxiety,  adjusted.  The  Peers,  said  Bright,  in 
his  review  of  the  session,  had  taught  some  other  people 
a  lesson  by  showing  that  they  had  learned  it  themselves. 
The  act  of  conciliation  was  passed.  It  did  not  conciliate 
the  Irish  people,  who  had  still  grievances  enough  to 
satisfy  their  appetite  for  complaint.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  did  not  destroy  the  Protestant  religion. 

Early  in  1870  Bright's  health  again  broke  down.  The 
symptoms  of  his  second  illness  resembled  those  of  the 
first,  and  it  was  of  about  equal  duration.  He  was 
present  at  the  Cabinet  meeting-s  at  which  the  Irish  Land 
Bill  of  that  year  was  prepared,  and,  for  reasons  already 
noted,  certain  clauses  of  it  have  always  been  known  by 
his  name ;  but  he  was  unable  to  take  any  part  in  the 
discussion  of  the  measure  in  Parliament. 

Twenty-five  years  had  passed  since  the  Devon  Com- 
mission had  reported  in  favour  of  g-iving-  legal  sanction 
and  extension  to  the  equitable  custom  of  Ulster,  by 
which  tenants,  on  quitting  their  holding-s,  were  entitled 
to  compensation  for  improvements  made  at  their  ex- 
pense. The  Parliament  of  the  middle  -  classes  per- 
sistently neg-lected  this  recommendation.  The  first 
Parliament  in  the  election  of  which  the  working-  men 
of  England  took  part  carried  it  into  effect.  This  fact 
may  fairly  be  pleaded  in  justification  of  the  opinion  which 
Bright  had  maintained  ag-ainst  Lowe.  The  Bill  also 
provided  for  compensation  for  disturbance  when  tenants 
were  evicted  for  any  cause  other  than  default  of  rent. 
But  we  are  here  chiefly  concerned  with  the  Bright 
clauses.  It  must  not  be  assumed  that  in  a  Cabinet  in 
which  Bright  alone  represented  the  extreme  left  of  the 
party  he  had  it  all  his  own  way  in  the  drafting  of  this 


Ireland.  153 

part  of  the  Bill;  and  it  is  not  certain  that  he  is  to  be 
blamed  for  defects  that  have  since  been  corrected  in  the 
maturity  of  experience  by  fresh  legislation. 

A  beginning  of  the  new  land -purchase  system  had 
already  been  made  in  those  clauses  of  the  Irish  Church 
Bill  which  empowered  the  Church  Commissioners  to 
advance  on  mortgage  at  four  per  cent  three-fourths  of 
the  purchase-money  to  a  tenant  of  Church  lands  desiring 
to  buy  his  farm.  These  clauses  are  sometimes  associated 
with  the  name  of  Bright.  The  Bright  clauses  of  the 
Land  Act  of  1870  provided  that  any  tenant  agreeing 
with  his  landlord  for  the  purchase  of  his  farm  could 
borrow  from  the  Imperial  Government  two-thirds  of  the 
price,  repaying  the  interest  and  principal  in  thirty-five 
annual  payments  of  j^c^  for  every  ;^ioo  advanced. 

The  Bright  clauses  are  sometimes  said  to  have  failed 
in  practice.  In  fact  they  initiated  a  successful  experi- 
ment. The  transactions  that  took  place  under  them, 
though  small  in  comparison  with  those  under  the  Ash- 
bourne Act  of  fifteen  years  later,  amounted  to  nearly 
two  millions  under  the  Church  Act,  and  more  than  half 
a  million  under  the  Land  Act.  A  beginning  at  any  rate 
was  made  towards  realizing  Bright's  hope  of  making  the 
land  the  savings-bank  of  the  thrifty  Irish  husbandman. 

The  experience  of  the  working  of  the  clauses  was  so 
satisfactory,  especially  in  respect  of  the  trifling  propor- 
tion of  bad  debts,  as  to  encourage  Parliament  to  continue 
the  work  by  further  advances  of  public  money  on  easier 
terms.  The  Land  Act  of  1881  increased  the  proportion 
of  the  purchase-money  lent  to  three-fourths,  the  rate  of 
repayment  remaining  the  same.  The  Acts  of  1885  and 
1 891  authorized  the  advance  of  the  whole  of  the  price, 
and  reduced  the  annuity  to  four  per  cent,  with  an  exten- 
sion of  the  term  to  forty-nine  years.  All  these  Acts  are 
to  be  traced  to  Bright's  original  discernment  of  this 
method  of  dealing  with  the  agrarian  difiiculty,  and  to 


154  John  Bright. 

the  use  he  elected  to  make  of  the  vast  influence  he  had 
g-ained  over  the  new  voters. 

The  causes  of  Irish  discontent  were  too  deeply  rooted 
to  be  eradicated  by  such  legislation,  and  those  who  have 
laboured  for  the  welfare  of  Ireland  have  long-  ceased  to 
look  to  Ireland  for  gratitude.  But  Bright's  name  may 
yet  be  honoured  in  Ireland  if  ever  the  fulness  of  time 
should  bring  the  accomplishment  of  the  prediction  with 
which  he  closed  his  great  speech  in  1849:  ''God  has 
blessed  Ireland,  and  does  still  bless  her  in  position,  in 
soil,  in  climate.  He  has  not  withdrawn  his  promises, 
nor  are  they  unfulfilled.  There  is  still  the  sunshine  and 
the  shower,  still  the  seed-time  and  the  harvest,  and  the 
affluent  bosom  of  the  earth  yet  offers  sustenance  for 
man.  But  man  must  do  his  part.  We  must  do  our 
part;  we  must  retrace  our  steps;  we  must  shun  the 
blunders,  and,  I  would  even  say,  the  crimes,  of  our  past 
legislation.  We  must  free  the  land ;  and  then  we  shall 
discover,  and  not  till  then,  that  industry,  hopeful  and 
remunerative,  industry,  free  and  inviolate,  is  the  only  sure 
foundation  on  which  can  be  reared  the  enduring  edifice 
of  union  and  peace." 


Chapter  VII. 

Education;  the  Conservative  Reaction;  and  the 

Eastern  Question. 

The  session  of  1870  is  memorable  not  only  for  the  first 
Irish  Land  Bill,  but  for  Forster's  Bill  establishing  for 
the  first  time  a  national  system  of  elementary  education. 
Bright  was  still  well  enough  to  do  business  when  the  first 
draft  of  this  measure  was  submitted  to  the  Cabinet,  but  his 
attendance  had  ceased  before  it  came  under  discussion. 
For  a  great  part  of  the  session  he  was  unable  even  to 


Education.  155 

read  in  the  papers  of  what  was  going-  on  in  Parliament. 
His  illness  therefore  befell  just  at  a  time  to  prevent  him 
from  doing  a  service  to  his  party  for  which  no  other  man 
was  competent — the  service  of  mediating  between  his 
colleagues  and  the  Nonconformists,  who  were  provoked 
to  revolt  by  the  educational  policy  of  the  Government. 

The  education  question  as  raised  and  discussed  in 
1870  is  the  only  political  controversy  of  his  time  upon 
which  we  cannot  collect  with  certainty  a  complete  account 
of  Bright's  views  from  his  speeches  and  public  letters. 
All  his  leading  supporters  in  Birmingham  were  warmly 
engaged  in  the  opposition  offered  by  the  National  Edu- 
cation League  to  some  of  the  provisions  of  Forster's  Bill. 
Bright's  own  sympathies  were  divided,  in  a  ratio  that 
cannot  easily  be  determined,  between  the  League  and 
his  colleagues.  When  he  addressed  his  constituents  for 
the  first  time  after  his  recovery,  he  said  what  he  could 
honestly  say  on  the  side  of  the  controversy  which  they 
had  espoused,  and  in  regard  to  the  rest  held  his  peace. 

It  has  already  been  related  that  in  his  early  parlia- 
mentary life,  as  a  zealot  both  of  religious  equality  and  of 
laisser-fairey  Bright  adopted  without  reserve  the  views 
of  the  Nonconformists  who  advocated  the  voluntary 
principle  in  education.  These  views  must  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  those  of  the  supporters  of  what  is 
perversely  called  the  voluntary  school  system  of  to-day. 
The  so-called  *'voluntarists"  of  1843,  an  extinct  species, 
held  that  all  schools  should  be  maintained  as  well  as 
managed  by  voluntary  effort.  Between  the  time  when 
Bright  strenuously  resisted  all  national  assistance  what- 
ever to  elementary  education  and  the  discovery  by  the 
friends  of  religious  equality  of  a  more  excellent  way  of 
satisfying  their  scruples,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
elapsed.  During  that  period  the  education  of  some  mil- 
lions of  unlucky  children  was  sacrificed  as  a  burnt-offering 
to  the  religious  diflficulty,  that  man-devouring  sphinx, 


156  John  Bright. 

The  steps  by  which  Bright  gradually  changed  his 
views  on  this  question  cannot  be  traced  in  his  public 
utterances.  But  in  1866,  towards  the  end  of  the  agita- 
tion for  reform,  he  declared  in  general  terms  for  a 
national  system  of  elementary  education.  He  then  de- 
scribed with  admiration  the  common  school  system 
anciently  established  in  New  England  and  already  preva- 
lent in  all  the  other  Northern  States.  He  used  the  superi- 
ority of  American  over  English  education  as  an  argument 
for  democracy,  and  even  seemed  to  add  the  meagreness 
of  the  national  provision  for  education  to  his  catalogue  of 
the  delinquencies  of  the  governing  classes.  He  declared 
that  he  would  stake  everything  he  had  upon  the  predic- 
tion that,  if  the  agitation  resulted  in  a  substantial  and 
real  representation  of  the  whole  people,  there  would  not 
pass  over  three  sessions  of  Parliament  before  there  would 
be  the  fullest  provision  for  the  thorough  instruction  of 
every  working  man's  child  in  the  kingdom. 

In  order  to  secure  this  result  without  further  offence 
to  the  principle  of  religious  equality  the  National  Educa- 
tion League  was  established.  Its  head -quarters  were 
at  Birmingham;  its  president  and  chief  spokesman  in 
Parliament  was  Bright's  colleague,  Mr.  George  Dixon, 
and  its  other  officers  were  mostly  constituents  of  his; 
and  the  working-classes  of  the  town  displayed  immense 
interest  in  the  question.  The  agitation  was  conducted 
with  great  vigour,  and  before  1870  the  League  was 
invested  with  authority  to  speak,  not  indeed  for  all,  but 
for  a  majority,  of  the  Nonconformists.  Its  policy  was  in 
brief.  Free,  Compulsory,  and  Unsectarian  Education, 
and  after  much  debate  the  word  unsectarian  was  inter- 
preted to  exclude  all  religious  teaching  from  schools 
supported  by  the  State.  It  was  not  indeed  proposed  to 
withdraw  from  the  voluntary  or  denominational  schools 
the  subsidy  they  already  received  from  the  Treasury; 
but  it  was  anticipated  with  confidence  that  they  would 


Education.  157 

painlessly  disappear  after  the  establishment  of  such  a 
system  of  municipal  schools  as  the  League  desired. 

The  solution  of  the  religious  difficulty  which  the 
League  proposed  has  never  yet  commended  itself  to 
more  than  a  respectable  minority  of  the  community. 
It  was  rejected  by  nearly  all  Churchmen,  and  by  many, 
perhaps  most,  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterians  and  of  the 
Wesleyans.  It  was  proposed  that  the  State  should 
entirely  relieve  the  Churches  of  the  care  of  secular 
education,  but  should  leave  to  the  Churches  the  whole 
charge  of  religious  education.  There  was  to  be  a 
thoroughly  national  system  of  secular  instruction,  and 
a  purely  voluntary  system  of  religious  instruction.  It 
was  held  that  the  qualifications  which  command  success 
in  religious  instruction  were  notably  different  from  those 
of  a  good  teacher  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic, 
and  that  the  same  differences  between  secular  and 
spiritual  instruction  in  respect  of  time,  place,  person, 
and  manner,  which  are  commonly  recognized  by  those 
of  riper  years  who  seek  edification  for  themselves,  should 
also  be  accepted  in  providing  education  for  children. 

Whatever  may  be  justly  said  against  the  rejected  pro- 
posal, it  will  not  be  denied  that  it  was  simple,  complete, 
and  logical,  and  that  it  provided  at  least  a  real  and  a 
final  solution  of  the  religious  difficulty.  It  is  also  ap- 
parent that  it  was,  of  its  own  nature  and  not  merely  by 
the  obstinacy  of  its  adherents,  rigid  and  unyielding-,  for 
the  completeness  and  finality  by  which  it  was  chiefly 
recommended  vanish  at  the  first  touch  of  compromise. 
The  League  principle  was  not  formulated  by  Bright,  nor 
did  he  ever  declare  his  entire  acceptance  of  it.  But 
it  proceeded  from  the  understanding  of  men  who  had 
learned  politics  at  his  feet,  and,  in  its  simplicity, 
audacity,  and  thoroughness,  it  bears  the  manifest  im- 
press of  his  mind.  As  a  work  of  art  it  is  to  be  cata- 
logued as  of  the  school,  if  not  from  the  hand,  of  Bright. 


158  John  Bright. 

In  his  absence  it  was  rejected,  in  despite  of  entreaty  and 
menace,  by  Forster  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  threw 
education  back  into  that  turmoil  of  the  sects  from  which 
they  had  an  opportunity,  not  easily  to  be  recaptured  by 
any  other  statesmen,  of  g^iving*  it  deliverance.  ''When 
a  contest  comes  for  a  School  Board ",  said  Bright  in 
1873,  ''the  question  of  real  education  seems  hardly  ever 
thought  of,  but  there  are  squabbles  between  Church  and 
Chapel  and  secularists,  and  I  do  not  know  how  many 
other  thing's.  And  when  the  School  Board  meets,  there 
is  priest  and  parson  and  minister,  and  they  are  partisans, 
and  there  is  no  free  breeze  of  public  opinion  passing-  over 
the  proceedings,  but  rather  an  unwholesome  atmosphere 
of  what  I  may  call  sectarian  exclusiveness  from  which 
nothing  good  may  come." 

Bright  had  described  the  plan  of  education  which  he 
favoured  during  the  election  of  1868.  He  proposed  a 
school  committee  elected  by  the  ratepayers  in  every 
Poor-law  Union,  rejecting  the  alternatives  of  parish  or 
county  committees.  The  committee  was  to  determine 
whether  there  was  a  deficiency  of  schools  in  its  district, 
and  where  new  schools  were  wanted ;  they  were  to  have 
powers  to  borrow  money  to  build  schools,  and  '*to  levy 
from  all  the  property  in  the  district  a  sufficient  amount 
of  rate  to  repay  in  time  the  debt,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  support  the  schools  from  year  to  year  ".  As  for  the 
existing  voluntary  schools  he  said,  *'  I  would  leave  them 
at  present  just  as  they  are.  They  would  work  on,  doing 
their  meritorious  work,  and  I  hope  "  (alas  for  the  vanity 
of  hope)  *'  without  any  jealousy  of  the  new  schools  which 
would  be  created."  He  expected  that  the  new  schools 
'*  would  be  in  all  points  so  good  that  gradually  all  dis- 
inclination to  this  system  on  the  part  of  the  friends  of 
the  present  schools  would  vanish  ",  and  he  added  that 
he  "looked  to  the  time  when  all  the  existing  schools 
would  be  given  up  to  the  new  and  general  system,  until 


Education.  159 

at  last — and  it  would  not  be  long  before  that  would 
happen — the  whole  common  school  education  of  the 
country  would  be  placed  under  a  general  broad  system 
of  district  and  municipal  management ".  He  did  not, 
however,  indicate  his  opinion  whether  the  common 
schools  should  be  open  entirely  without  fee,  and  whether 
attendance  should  be  compulsory.  Compulsion  was  in 
general  distasteful  to  him,  as  he  showed  for  example  by 
his  dislike  of  compulsory  vaccination.  When  it  came, 
he  did  not  actively  resist  it,  but  he  described  himself  as 
"not  a  fanatical  supporter  of  any  strict  or  rigid  com- 
pulsion ". 

Of  the  religious  difficulty  Bright  took  a  view  which 
has,  unhappily  for  education,  proved  far  too  sanguine. 
'*  It  is  a  difficulty  which  is  every  day  lessening.  It  has 
never  been  great  in  the  minds  of  the  great  body  of  the 
people.  It  is  a  difficulty  which  has  mainly  been  created 
by  the  ministers  of  religion,  not  with  any  wrong  inten- 
tion, but  because  their  eyes  were  directed  so  much  to 
one  question,  and  to  one  great  object  of  human  endeavour, 
that  they  seemed  to  feel  it  necessary  to  tie  it  up  with 
everything  else."  Bright,  it  must  be  remembered,  be- 
longed to  a  religious  community  which  does  without  a 
professional  ministry.  He  looked  to  the  Sunday-schools 
to  **  supplement  the  general  education  of  the  people  in 
ordinary  instruction  by  giving  them  that  religious  in- 
struction which  may  be  of  value  to  them  ".  Two  years 
later,  just  before  his  illness,  he  repeated  this  opinion. 
He  thought  ''  one  day  in  seven  a  reasonable  time  for 
religious  instruction  ",  and  that  the  religious  organiza- 
tion was  "sufficient  for  teaching  religion  in  the  sense 
that  is  meant  by  those  who  say  that  education  is  of  no 
value  unless  it  be  taught  alongside  and  mixed  up  with 
distinct  religious  teaching".  In  the  day-schools  he 
thought  that  it  would  suffice  to  teach  "what  every  right- 
minded  teacher  would  undertake — to  teach  every  child 


i6o  John  Bright. 

love  of  truth,  the  love  of  virtue,  the  love  of  God  and  the 
fear  of  offending^  him  ". 

Such  was  the  basis  on  which  Bright  would  have  tried 
to  induce  his  colleagues  to  frame  the  Education  Bill,  had 
he  not  been  removed  from  their  counsels  by  illness.  Of 
Forster's  Act  he  expressed  his  opinion  after  his  return 
in  1873.  ''The  Education  Bill  was  supposed  to  be 
needed  because  the  system  that  up  to  1870  had  existed 
was  held  to  be  insufficient  and  bad ;  and  the  fault  of  the 
Bill  is  to  my  mind  that  it  extended  and  confirmed  the 
system  which  it  ought  to  have  superseded.  It  was  a 
Bill  to  encourage  denominational  education  and,  where 
that  was  impossible,  to  establish  Board  Schools.  It  ought 
to  have  been  a  Bill,  in  my  opinion,  to  establish  Board 
Schools,  and  to  oifer  inducements  to  those  who  were 
connected  with  denominational  schools  to  bring  them 
under  the  control  of  the  School  Boards."^  This  was  also 
the  opinion  of  the  Birmingham  Liberals;  but,  even  with 
Bright's  assistance,  they  failed  to  convince  the  leaders 
of  their  party.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Forster  had 
asserted  that  the  school -rate  would  not  exceed  three- 
pence, except  in  a  few  very  poor  districts,  where  it 
might  touch  fourpence ;  and  that  this  statement,  offered 
without  a  word  of  proof,  was  accepted  without  a  single 
question  by  the  House  of  Commons.  The  rapid  rise  of 
the  rate  to  three,  four,  or  five  times  this  amount  drove 
the  Birmingham  plan  out  of  the  region  of  practical 
politics.  Having  secured  compulsion,  the  League  party 
concentrated  their  efforts,  with  ultimate  success,  upon 
the  abolition  of  school  fees. 

In  order  to  complete  and  dismiss  this  question,  it 
must  be  added  that  in  1876  Bright  supported  Mr. 
Dixon's   Bill    for  extending  the   School-board    system. 

^Rogers  (Public  Addresses  of  John  Bright,  p.  202)  reads  "under  the 
control  of  the  Privy  Council".  I  cannot  believe  that  this  is  what  Bright 
meant ;  anyhow  it  is  not  what  he  said. 


Education.  i6i 

He  was  not,  he  said,  wedded  to  School  Boards  if  they 
were  not  the  best  plan;  but  he  called  on  the  Govern- 
ment to  produce  a  better  plan  if  they  would  not  accept 
School  Boards.  He  declared  himself  satisfied  with  the 
success  of  the  Boards ;  and,  after  describing-  a  visit  to  a 
Board  School  in  the  East-End,  he  said,  with  some  for- 
g-etfulness  of  the  part  he  had  taken  in  1847,  "When  I 
left  that  school  I  confess  I  did  not  know  whether  most 
to  rejoice  or  to  weep.  I  could  rejoice  at  seeing-  what  I 
had  seen  of  what  is  now  being  done :  I  could  have  wept 
at  the  thought  that  for  so  many  generations  the  children 
of  that  class  in  this  country  and  in  this  city  have  been 
almost  absolutely  and  entirely  neglected."  He  opposed 
the  clauses  in  the  Conservative  Bill  of  the  same  session 
which  seemed  to  be  prejudicial  to  the  School  Boards. 
But  in  1880,  after  further  experience  of  School  Boards, 
he  said  that  he  was  sorry  that  Forster  had  not  adhered 
to  his  original  proposal  of  entrusting  the  education  of 
municipal  boroughs  to  the  Town  Councils  instead  of  to 
specially  elected  bodies. 

Bright  made  one  or  two  appearances  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1872.  In  September  of  the  following  year, 
when,  after  the  failure  of  the  attempt  made  by  the 
Government  to  establish  a  new  University  in  Ireland, 
Mr.  Gladstone  reconstructed  his  Cabinet,  he  rejoined  it 
as  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster.  But  he  did 
not  speak  in  Parliament  during  the  session  of  1873,  ^^^ 
the  speech  already  quoted,  delivered  to  his  constituents 
in  October  of  that  year,  marks  his  return  to  the  activity 
of  public  life.  His  illness  had  condemned  him  to  four 
years'  silence  in  Parliament. 

Some  of  the  most  important  victories  of  his  political 
principles  were  completed  during  his  absence.  The 
third  of  his  three  heads  of  Reform  was  accepted  by  the 
passing  of  the  Ballot  Act.  He  had  peculiar  reason  to 
rejoice  in  the  submission  to  arbitration  of  the  American 

(M433^  L 


162  John  Bright. 

claims  in  respect  of  the  depredations  of  the  Alabama. 
'*When  the  pen  of  history",  he  said,  ''narrates  what 
has  been  done  in  regard  to  this  question,  it  will  say  that 
that  treaty  and  that  arbitration,  conducted  by  Lord 
Granville  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  added  a  nobler  pag-e  to 
the  history  of  Eng-land  than  if  they  had  filled  it  with  the 
records  of  bloody  battles."  Another  question  in  which 
he  had  all  his  life  taken  the  most  lively  interest,  and  on 
which  he  had  made  his  first  speeches  even  before  he 
joined  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League,  had  been  settled  in 
1868  by  the  abolition  of  compulsory  Church  Rates. 

By  this  Act  the  third  of  the  three  great  purposes  which 
he  had  pursued  with  hope  and  energy  that  prevailed 
over  the  doubt  and  weariness  of  disappointment  was  at 
last  accomplished;  and  he  was  disposed  to  the  opinion 
that  the  work  of  his  life  was  finished.  This  feeling, 
with  the  permanent  lassitude  left  by  the  physical  and 
mental  sufferings  of  his  two  long  illnesses,  caused  him 
from  this  time  forward  to  hint  frequently  at  retirement 
from  public  life.  But,  though  his  work  could  never 
again  be  as  important  as  it  had  been  to  his  party  and 
to  the  country,  his  political  friends  were  always  unwilling 
to  allow  him  to  relinquish  the  position  he  had  attained. 
He  had  laid  down  the  axe  of  the  pioneer;  he  remained 
the  Nestor  of  his  party,  advising  its  more  active  leaders, 
and  sometimes  composing  its  strife. 

In  the  Birmingham  speech  he  suggested  five  more 
reforms  to  which  the  Liberals  should  devote  their  energy. 
These  were:  the  assimilation  of  the  county  to  the 
borough  franchise,  a  further  redistribution  of  seats,  the 
repeal  of  the  Game  Laws,  a  Free  Breakfast-table,  and 
what  was  now  called  Free  Land. 

He  had  popularized  the  term,  a  Free  Breakfast-table, 
in  1868,  in  a  speech  at  Edinburgh,  after  receiving  the 
freedom  of  the  burgh.  '*I  once  advised  the  Financial 
Reform  Association  of  Liverpool,  who  are  against  all 


The  Land  Laws.  163 

indirect  taxation,  to  hoist  a  flag-  with  the  motto  *  a  Free 
Breakfast-table' — that,  as  the  bread  was  no  longer  taxed, 
some  effort  should  be  made  to  untax  the  tea  and  the 
coffee  and  the  sugar."  But  it  soon  appeared  that  the 
new  voters  preferred  rather  to  spend  what  could  be 
spared  of  the  national  income  on  education  and  other 
objects  beneficial  to  themselves  than  to  save  their  own 
contributions.  The  cry  of  economy  has  not  been  so 
attractive  to  the  working  as  to  the  middle  classes. 

The  term  Free  Land,  unfortunately  suggestive  of 
schemes,  abhorrent  to  Bright,  which  had  not  yet  crossed 
the  Atlantic,  owed  its  acceptance  in  part  to  the  attrac- 
tive jingle  it  made  with  Free  Church,  Free  Schools,  Free 
Trade.  Bright  intended  by  it  the  removal  of  all  obstacles 
created  by  law  in  the  way  of  the  distribution  of  land 
among  many  owners.  Although  he  had  held  that  such 
reforms  of  the  Land  Laws  were  not  so  urgently  needed 
in  England  as  in  Ireland,  because  in  England  the  manu- 
facturing industries  supplied  the  gradations  of  rank  and 
position  which  it  was  the  chief  purpose  of  his  Irish  policy 
to  create  in  Ireland,  he  had  from  the  first  made  it  clear 
that  he  desired  those  reforms  in  England  also.  "What 
the  agricultural  class  of  this  country  requires  is  that  the 
land  should  be  made  absolutely  free;  that  there  should 
be  steps  by  which  the  best,  the  cleverest,  the  most  in- 
dustrious, the  most  frugal  of  the  agricultural  labourers 
could  gradually  make  their  way  to  a  higher  and  better 
social  life.  They  can  never  do  that  with  land  laws 
such  as  we  have — land  laws  which  tend  everywhere 
to  great  estates  and  great  farms  altogether  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  expectation  or  dreams  of  the  agricultural 
labourers."  "There  are  natural  forces  at  work",  he 
said  in  1876,  "which  cause  or  promote  the  accumulation 
of  land,  and  natural  forces  which  as  certainly  cause  and 
promote  the  dispersion  of  land.  What  we  are  arguing 
for  is  that  these  forces  should  be  allowed  to  work  natu- 


164  John  Bright. 

rally  and  freely,  and  that  the  law  should  not  in  any  way 
interfere  with  them,  but  that  land  should  change  just 
as  easily,  and  go  into  the  possession  of  other  persons 
by  that  change,  as  any  other  kind  of  property  which 
men  possess.  The  result  of  such  a  change  in  the  law 
would  be  that  land  as  a  whole  would  find  itself  always 
in  the  possession  of  that  class  of  the  population  which 
will  do  the  best  for  the  land  and  for  the  people  who 
dwell  upon  it."  The  latifundia,  which  he  disliked  as 
being  both  the  symbol  and  the  mechanism  of  aristocratic 
supremacy,  still  exist ;  they  would  probably,  being  main- 
tained rather  by  traditionary  habit  than  by  law,  survive 
any  legislation  stopping  short  of  such  interference  with 
the  liberty  of  ownership  as  he  at  least  would  not  tole- 
rate; but  by  other  methods  something  has  been  done 
to  open  a  more  hopeful  career  to  agricultural  industry 
and  thrift. 

Bright's  proposals  were  offered  on  the  presumption 
that  the  next  Parliament  also  would  occupy  itself  with 
measures  devised  by  a  Liberal  Government.  That  ex- 
pectation was  to  be  disappointed.  In  January,  1874, 
Mr.  Gladstone  surprised  the  country  by  a  dissolution. 
Bright  and  his  two  colleagues  were  returned  for  Bir- 
mingham without  opposition.  But  elsewhere  the  Liberals 
lost  many  seats;  the  Conservative  reaction  proved  to 
be  a  reality;  and  Mr.  Disraeli  found  himself  not  only 
Prime  Minister,  but  for  the  first  time  in  command  of  a 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Disraeli  had  touched  with  a  needle  one  cause  of  the 
waning  of  the  popularity  of  the  Liberal  Government  in 
his  description  of  their  measures  as  ''harassing  legisla- 
tion ".  Bright  retorted  that  if  the  Conservatives  had 
been  in  the  wilderness  they  would  have  condemned  the 
Ten  Commandments  as  harassing  legislation.  It  was 
hard  for  a  man  who  had  said  that  most  of  our  evils  are 
caused  by  the  interference  of  the  State  to  confess  that 


The  Conservative  Reaction.  165 

the  Government  of  which  he  was  a  member  had  inter- 
fered overmuch. 

Bright  himself  selected  for  special  remark  three  of 
the  causes  that  had  contributed  to  this  memorable  de- 
feat. The  first  was  the  disunion  caused  by  the  mativais 
coucheurs  of  the  party,  whom  he  described  as  ''men 
possessed  not  of  an  idea,  but  by  an  idea  ".  The  second 
cause  was  the  permanent  and  solid  power  of  the  Land 
and  the  Church;  and  the  third  the  wrath  of  the  pub- 
licans, whose  interest  had  been  harassed  by  Bruce's 
early-closing  Act,  and  was  threatened  by  the  Temper- 
ance party  with  further  interference.  In  the  early  years 
of  democracy  the  influence  of  the  publicans  was  a  force 
not  to  be  despised.  The  old-fashioned  publican  was  in 
the  position  of  the  chairman  of  a  workmen's  club.  He 
was  often  the  oldest  inhabitant  of  the  street,  a  man  of 
substance  as  compared  with  his  neighbours,  and  fre- 
quently generous  in  disposition ;  he  was  commonly  the 
best  informed  of  the  group  that  met  in  his  parlour  in 
the  evening,  and,  if  not  the  only  reader,  the  only  man 
who  had  had  time  to  study  the  politics  of  the  day  in  the 
daily  paper.  He  was,  in  short,  the  interpreter  of  politics 
to  a  small  coterie  of  voters,  and  when  the  election  came 
he  could  often  take  his  company  with  him  to  the  poll. 
His  political  power  has  since  been  weakened  by  the 
Education  Act,  the  halfpenny  evening  paper,  and  the 
tied-house  system.  But  in  1875  Bright  was  justified  in 
respecting  him  as  a  formidable  antagonist. 

No  one,  however,  could  at  that  time  discern  that  the 
change  in  the  balance  of  parties  was  due  to  a  quality 
of  the  new  democracy  that  has  since  proved  itself  to  be 
of  the  most  serious  importance.  Every  general  election 
since  the  Reform  of  1867  has  resulted  in  a  transference 
of  power  from  one  party  to  the  other,  if  we  except  the 
doubtful  case  of  1885,  when  a  new  arm)^  of  voters  was 
called  out.      No  political  wisdom,  no  legislative  success, 


i66  John  Bright. 

no  eloquence  of  advocacy,  no  art  of  organization,  has 
prevailed  ag^ainst  the  imperious  force  of  the  swing-  of  the 
political  pendulum.  It  is  now  manifest  that  the  victory 
of  the  Conservatives  in  1874  was  the  first  example  of 
the  operation  of  a  force  that  works,  as  it  were,  with  the 
inexorable  precision  of  a  law  of  nature. 

Two  causes  of  this  discomposing-  phenomenon  may 
be  sug-g-ested.  Under  modern  democratic  conditions 
each  party  is  so  sensitive  of  the  general  trend  of  public 
opinion  that  it  can  always  save  itself  by  timely  concession 
from  falling  into  a  hopeless  minority.  In  the  freedom  of 
private  conversation  we  can  always  discover  divergences 
of  opinion  such  as  would,  unless  something  checked, 
split  the  electorate  into  many  groups.  The  check  is 
supplied  by  the  instinct  of  party,  so  strong  in  the  Eng- 
lish race.  That  instinct  encourages  the  surrender  of 
sectional  purposes  against  which  the  balance  of  public 
opinion  has  decided.  The  result  is  that,  in  whatever 
direction  the  country  is  carried  by  the  hidden  laws  that 
guide  the  broad  current  of  national  opinion,  the  division 
between  the  two  parties  will,  at  any  moment,  approxi- 
mately bisect  the  electorate.  When  the  balance  of 
parties  is  even,  what  is  called  the  verdict  of  the  country 
is  the  verdict  of  a  body  of  voters,  respectable  neither  in 
number,  nor  in  intelligence,  nor  in  public  spirit — the 
grumblers,  who  are  always  in  opposition. 

The  second  cause  may  be  found  in  the  large  expecta- 
tion which  the  populace  is  encouraged  to  entertain  of 
what  Government  can  do,  ought  to  do,  and  will  do  for 
them.  This  expectation,  necessarily  disappointed  by 
each  successive  ministry,  turns  the  tongue  of  the  even 
balance  in  favour  of  the  Opposition.  The  promises 
that  win  success  for  a  party  at  one  election  ensure  its 
defeat  at  the  next. 

These  reasons  are  independent  of  the  theory  of  re- 
action,— a  very  disputable   part   of  the    philosophy   of 


The  Conservative  Reaction.  167 

history, — the  theory  that,  to  take  the  example  most 
frequently  cited,  accounts  for  the  Indecency  of  the 
Restoration  by  the  prudery  of  the  Puritans ;  as  though 
Dryden  would  have  been  less  obscene  If  Milton  had 
permitted  himself  an  occasional  indelicacy!  So  far 
from  offering  examples  of  alternating  reaction  from  one 
extreme  to  Its  opposite,  the  history  of  England  since 
1868  exhibits  the  policy  of  each  party — Disraeli's  im- 
perialism for  example — exercising  a  positive  and  attrac- 
tive rather  than  a  negative  and  repellent  influence  upon 
that  of  its  rival,  and  upon  the  general  tendency  of 
national  opinion. 

Hitherto  the  movement  of  opinion  in  the  Liberal  party 
had  been  uniformly  in  Bright's  direction.  From  this 
time  forward  It  Is  possible  to  discern  changes  which,  so 
far  as  they  went,  tended  to  draw  the  party  away  from 
his  Ideals.  The  ear  of  the  democracy  was  being  caught 
by  a  new  school  of  Radicals,  who  did  not  reject,  but 
who  were  not  content  with,  the  Manchester  doctrine. 
Their  outlook  was  wider,  their  democratic  sympathies 
broader,  their  principles  less  rigid,  than  those  of  the 
school  in  which  Bright  was  reared.  It  might  be  mis- 
leading to  apply  to  this  group  of  politicians  in  any 
absolute  sense  the  terms  Imperialist,  Socialist,  Oppor- 
tunist; but,  used  relatively,  these  names  may  serve  to 
indicate  the  most  striking  differences  between  the  radi- 
calism of  the  eighth  decade  and  that  of  Cobden  and 
Hume. 

Bright  had  seen  with  exultation  the  adoption  of  his 
principle  of  non-intervention  In  European  quarrels,  and 
the  decaying  worship  of  the  hated  fetish  of  the  Balance 
of  Power.  But  the  relinquishment  of  the  risky  and 
fidgety  behaviour  of  the  Palmerstonlan  period  had  left 
the  foreign  policy  of  the  party,  in  the  opinion  of  its 
younger  members,  nerveless  and  Indistinct.  Bright  had 
not  only  rejoiced  in  the  policy,  for  which  he  gave  chief 


i68  John  Bright. 

credit  to  Molesworth,  that  acquiesced  without  demur  in 
the  demand  of  the  growing-  colonies  for  self-government, 
but  he  seemed  to  regard  the  tie  that  bound  the  settle- 
ments to  England  as  one  that  might  be  broken  without 
regret;  every  extension  of  the  area  and  responsibility 
of  the  Empire  made  him  uneasy;  and  he  lived  to  treat 
with  disdain  the  idea  of  Imperial  Federation.  One  of 
the  leaders  of  the  new  Radicals  was  the  first  man  to 
popularize  the  term  Greater  Britain,  which  contains  in 
itself  the  germ  of  the  modern  imperialist  idea. 

Bright  again,  as  we  have  so  often  had  occasion  to 
remark,  was  disinclined  to  any  legislative  interference 
with  freedom  of  action  and  liberty  of  contract.  The 
new  Radicals  were  disposed  to  emulate  the  Conserva- 
tives in  social  legislation;  nor  did  they  share  Bright's 
distrust  of  trades-unionism.  Bright  remembered  Joseph 
Hume,  the  terror  of  Supply,  with  affectionate  regret; 
the  new  Radicals  were  liberal  in  their  demands  on  the 
public  purse.  They  were  interested  in  expanding  the 
progressive  policy  of  the  party;  he  retorted  that  the 
party  had  already  "  too  much  policy  ".  He  did  not  like 
the  word  programme,  which  about  this  time  was  intro- 
duced into  the  political  vocabulary. 

These  differences,  however,  were  not  yet  to  be  detected 
by  the  ordinary  observer.  There  was  at  no  time  any 
quarrel  or  even  debate  between  Bright  and  the  younger 
men  who  represented  the  newer  conception  of  progress. 
His  tenacity  of  opinion  forbids  us  to  impute  to  him 
without  direct  evidence  any  change  of  view.  In  the 
weariness  and  the  prudence  of  old  age  he  became  more 
and  more  disposed  to  prefer  silence  to  speech  and 
acquiescence  to  disputation.  Whatever  fear  he  may 
have  had  of  the  socialistic  tendencies  of  younger  Liberals, 
and  whatever  disappointment  at  the  failure  of  his  hope 
that  the  new  power  would  be  used  for  retrenchment,  were 
eclipsed  by  one  great  apprehension  that  beset  him  in 


The  Conservative  Reaction.  169 

his  old  age.  He  became  subject  to  depression,  due  no 
doubt  in  part  to  physical  causes,  and  disposed  to  take 
a  gloomy  view  of  public  affairs.  The  fear  that  then 
haunted  him  was  that  the  working-classes,  enfranchised 
by  his  efforts,  might,  as  time  went  on  and  their  inde- 
pendence of  thought  and  action  grew,  renounce  the 
doctrine  of  Free  Trade. 

This  fear  was  never  publicly  expressed;  for  no  event 
befell  that  could  justify  the  discussion  of  such  a  possi- 
bility. But  often  when  men  were  assembled  to  hear 
him,  he  passed  by  the  burning  questions  of  the  moment, 
and  told  again  the  story  of  what  free  trade  and  the 
free-traders  had  done  for  the  country.  Hostile  critics 
discovered  self-complacency  in  these  speeches.  But 
they  were  delivered  for  the  practical  purpose  of  keeping 
steadily  before  the  mind  of  the  younger  generation  of 
voters  the  lessons  of  the  history  which  the  speaker  him- 
self had  helped  to  make.  He  saw  that  the  working- 
classes  were  setting  at  nought  in  their  unions  what 
appeared  to  him  to  be  the  orthodox  and  irrefragable 
teachings  of  political  economy.  Where,  then,  was  the 
security  that  they  would  not  be  persuaded  by  blind 
guides  to  despise  the  doctrine  that  forbade  protection? 
If  that  doctrine  was  mathematically  demonstrable,  not 
less  so  was  the  doctrine  they  already  disdained.  "  I 
believe",  he  said  in  1875,  ''that  all  combinations  which 
are  intended  to  affect  the  rate  of  wages  are  acting  upon 
a  principle  of  protection,  which  in  their  case  is  just  as 
evil  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  landed  proprietors  and  the 
various  manufacturers  who  at  different  times  have  had 
protective  duties  in  their  favour.  There  appears  to  be 
a  general  opinion  among  many  of  them,  that,  if  people 
could  do  less  and  produce  less,  by  some  necromancy 
every  one  would  have  rather  more.  It  appears  to  me 
from  what  I  know  of  the  gospel  of  industry,  that  it  is 
as  likely  by  combination  to  make  men  immortal  as  it  is 


170  John  Bright. 

by  combination  to  fight   against  the  laws  upon  which 
profits  and  wages  are  based." 

Not  many  men  dependent  for  their  seats  on  the  votes 
of  artisans  would  have  ventured  to  say  so  much.  Fifteen 
years  earlier,  when  there  was  a  strong  indignation 
against  the  trades-unions  and  the  practice  of  striking, 
Bright  had  declared  that,  though  nine  strikes  out  of  ten 
had  better  be  avoided,  the  unions  were  justified  in  hold- 
ing strikes  as  a  reserved  force  to  be  used  in  the  last 
emergency.  He  was  no  flatterer  of  the  populace.  He 
defended  the  trades-unions  when  they  commanded  no 
voting  power;  after  he  had  won  them  their  votes,  he 
gave  them  unwelcome  advice. 

When  before  the  session  of  1875  Mr.  Gladstone  re- 
signed the  leadership  of  the  Liberal  party,  Bright's 
position  in  its  ranks  was  indicated  by  his  call  to  the 
chair  of  the  meeting  at  which  the  new  leader  was  chosen. 
Despite  the  divergence  caused  by  the  innovations  of  the 
new  Radicals,  Lord  Hartington  was  chosen  with  a 
unanimity  that  was  in  part  due  to  confidence  in  Bright's 
mediation.  But  events  were  imminent  that  recalled  Mr. 
Gladstone  from  his  brief  retirement,  and  that  aroused 
Bright  to  the  last  outburst  of  his  old  energy.  Though 
he  was  becoming  more  and  more  inclined  to  leave  the 
political  battle  to  other  combatants,  and  though  he  was 
incapable  of  repeating  the  labours  of  the  Free-trade 
campaign  and  the  popular  agitation  for  Reform,  he 
could  not  sit  quiet  when  the  Eastern  Question  was  re- 
opened, and  when  the  ghost  of  the  Crimean  policy  began 
to  walk. 

Early  in  1875  the  revolt  of  Herzegovina  and  Bosnia 
against  Turkish  misrule  excited  hopes  and  fears  of  the 
disruption  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  unless  Britain  or 
Europe  should  once  more  intervene  to  save  its  integrity. 
In  October  of  the  same  year  the  Porte  made  what  was 
equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  bankruptcy.     Later  in  the 


The  Eastern  Question.  171 

same  year  its  rejection  of  the  Andrassy  Note,  a  diplo- 
matic instrument  by  which  the  Powers  essayed  to  impose 
reforms  on  the  Sultan,  marked  the  first  signal  failure  of 
the  European  concert  as  the  machinery  for  protecting 
the  Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte.  In  the  following 
May  Bulgaria  revolted,  and  the  Powers  again  inter- 
vened. But  now  the  European  concert  was  broken, 
and  broken  by  Britain :  for  the  Berlin  Note,  demanding 
favourable  terms  for  the  insurgents,  and  effective  guar- 
antees for  the  reforms,  which  was  prepared  by  Germany, 
Russia,  and  Austria,  and  accepted  by  France  and  Italy, 
was  rejected  by  Disraeli's  Government. 

To  the  Opposition  the  Government  appeared  by  this 
action  to  be  sacrificing  to  their  jealousy  of  Russia  a  rare 
opportunity  of  doing  something  really  effective  for 
humanity  and  civilization  in  European  Turkey,  and 
their  wrath  rose  to  a  white  heat  when  the  news  came 
to  hand  of  the  unparalleled  cruelty  that  had  attended 
the  suppression  of  the  Bulgarian  revolt.  No  oratory 
less  copious  or  less  ardent  than  Mr.  Gladstone's  could 
serve  to  give  voice  to  the  popular  indignation.  He  left 
his  books,  and  led  with  tremendous  effect  the  cry  of 
outraged  humanity.  At  this  point  the  great  majority  of 
Britons  appeared  to  join  in  the  demand  that  Britain, 
notwithstanding  any  engagements  of  treaty,  should  at 
once  and  for  ever  dissociate  herself  from  complicity  with 
Turkish  misrule.  Disraeli  however  declared  firmly  that 
he  would  never  consent  to  any  step  that  might  imperil 
the  Empire  of  Britain. 

In  the  autumn  Servia  and  Montenegro  made  war  upon 
the  Turk,  with  the  connivance  of  Russia.  They  were 
soon  crying  quarter;  and  the  intervention  of  Europe 
again  became  necessary.  At  the  end  of  the  year  there 
was  a  conference  of  the  Powers  at  Constantinople,  Lord 
Salisbury  representing-  Britain.  The  European  Concert 
appeared  to  be  restored,  but  the  Turk  refused  to  sacrifice 


172  John   Bright. 

the  fruits  of  victory  at  the  dictation  of  the  Powers.  The 
situation  now  resembled  that  which  followed  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  Vienna  Note  in  1854.  But  the  British 
distrust  of  Russia  had  now  to  contend  with  the  more 
powerful  sentiment  of  disgust  at  Turkish  misrule.  If 
the  crisis  was  similar,  the  issue  was  different.  Bright 
attributed  the  obstinacy  of  the  Turk  to  his  expectation 
that,  as  in  1854,  Britain  would  still  support  him  against 
Russia  though  he  should  neglect  her  advice.  Lord  Sal- 
isbury's voice,  he  said,  was  overpowered  by  the  **  rowdy 
war  party"  in  England,  who  "were  speaking  in  another 
voice  and  stimulating  and  encouraging  the  Turk  to 
resist".  '* There  is  always  a  war  party",  he  said  later. 
"  It  is  found  in  the  press  constantly.  Unfortunately  for 
the  public  interest,  there  is  hardly  anything  that  tends 
so  much  to  enhance  the  profits  of  the  proprietors  of 
newspapers  as  a  stirring  and  exciting  conflict." 

In  April,  1877,  Russia  declared  war  on  Turkey.  It 
took  the  Russians  all  the  rest  of  the  year  to  bring  the 
Turks  to  their  knees.  On  December  10  their  victory 
was  assured  by  the  unconditional  surrender  of  the 
Turkish  forces  beleaguered  at  Plevna.  By  this  time 
British  opinion,  which  had  been  so  strongly  hostile  to 
the  Turks  at  the  time  of  the  Bulgarian  atrocities,  ap- 
peared to  be  evenly  divided  between  the  belligerents. 
The  war  fever  of  1854  reappeared,  and  rose  higher  as 
the  Russian  army  approached  Constantinople.  Parlia- 
ment met  early  in  1878,  and  the  Government  took  a  vote 
of  credit  for  six  millions,  as  a  warning  to  Russia  not  to 
pursue  the  rights  of  conquest  so  far  as  to  threaten  British 
interests.  A  notable  addition  was  made  at  this  time  to 
our  political  mythology.  That  part  of  the  population 
which  is  least  distinguished  by  intelligence  and  sobriety, 
in  calling  upon  the  Ministry  to  fight  rather  than  allow 
Constantinople  to  become  a  Russian  port,  invoked  the 
aid    of  Jingo,    the    tutelar  divinity  of   those   ambitions 


The  Eastern  Question.  173 

which  were  afterwards  oddly  associated  with  the  modest 
primrose. 

Brig-ht  addressed  many  public  meetings  during-  these 
events.  His  views  on  the  question,  simplified  as  they 
were  by  his  life-long  disdain  of  the  traditions  of  the 
Foreign  Office,  admit  of  a  brief  summary. 

So  far  from  resenting  he  welcomed  the  intervention  of 
Russia.  After  the  Crimean  war  Russia  had  been  com- 
pelled to  renounce  the  protectorate  of  the  Christian  sub- 
jects of  Turkey;  but  the  European  Powers  which  had 
undertaken  the  duty  had  proved  incompetent  to  perform 
it.  '*The  Russian  protectorate  was  a  reality;  the  pro- 
tection of  the  conjoint  Powers  is  only  a  sham.  There 
has  been  no  protection."  He  admitted  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  tear  up  without  negotiation  the  treaty  of 
1856;  but  he  urged  the  Government  to  "negotiate  on 
new  terms,  with  better  principles  and  a  better  policy  ". 
*' Let  us  dissolve  partnership",  he  exclaimed,  "with  a 
Power  which  curses  every  land  that  is  subject  to  it." 
When  Russia  declared  war.  Bright  justified  that  action. 
The  verdict  of  Europe  had  been  given  against  the  Turk; 
Russia  had  only  undertaken  to  enforce  the  verdict;  and 
"if  the  verdict  of  the  Conference  was  a  righteous  ver- 
dict, it  seemed  only  in  accordance  with  reason  and  with 
logflc  that  someone  should  enforce  it ". 

He  refused  to  believe  either  that  any  British  interest 
was  endangered  by  the  action  of  Russia,  or  even  that 
Russia  had  any  designs  hostile  to  Britain.  "  No  nation 
has  been  in  disposition  more  friendly  to  this  nation  than 
Russia."  "There  is  no  nation  on  the  Continent  that  is 
less  able  to  do  harm  to  England."  The  only  Interest 
England  had  in  the  Levant  was  "the  constant  free 
maintenance  of  the  passage  through  the  Suez  Canal ", 
and  that  freedom  would  not  be  more  endangered  by  the 
presence  of  a  Russian  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean  than  by 
the  presence  there  of  the  fleets  of  other  Powers.     Even 


174  John  Bright. 

if  Russia  held  Constantinople,  why  should  Constan- 
tinople imperil  our  route  to  India  any  more  than  Toulon 
and  Spezzia?  We  could  always  rely  on  the  help  of 
Europe  to  keep  the  Canal  open.  It  was  written  in  the 
book  of  fate,  he  said,  that  the  Bosporus  would  ulti- 
mately, and  not  remotely,  be  open  to  all  the  nations  of 
the  world;  and  why  should  not  the  Bosporus  be  as  open 
as  the  Canal? 

As  for  the  Central  Asian  aggressions  by  which  Russia 
was  believed  to  be  preparing*  for  an  attack  on  India, 
Brig-ht  was  content  to  say  that  *'the  interest  of  this 
country  with  regard  to  Russia  in  connection  with  India 
is  an  unbroken  amity".  The  Government  seemed  to 
hold  the  doctrine  of  1854,  but  the  opinion  of  half  the 
country  had  swung"  round.  **  Now  a  man  may  have  an 
opinion  in  favour  of  peace,  and  the  dog's  of  war  will 
scarcely  bark  at  him." 

On  March  3,  1878,  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  was 
sigfned  by  Russia  and  Turkey,  and  it  was  found  that 
Russia  did  not  intend  to  occupy  Constantinople.  Never- 
theless the  British  Government  felt  it  their  duty  to  inter- 
vene with  the  other  Powers  for  a  revision  of  the  terms 
of  peace,  which  indeed  they  loudly  condemned.  Bright 
taunted  them  with  *' going  to  a  conference  with  shotted 
cannon  and  loaded  revolvers  ",  and  with  professing  to 
defend  ''what  they  called  European  law",  although 
"Europe  repudiates  our  European  law".  He  charged 
them  with  "constant  deception  practised  on  the  House 
of  Commons  and  the  country  by  professing  a  wish  for 
peace  whilst  engaged  in  acts  distinctly  provocative  of 
war";  and  with  "interposing  obstacles  in  the  way  of  any 
arrangement  for  the  settlement  of  the  Eastern  Question 
on  any  basis  favourable  to  the  freedom  of  the  oppressed 
Christian  population  of  the  Turkish  provinces  ". 

Before  the  Conference  at  Berlin  was  held  the  Ministry 
was  weakened  by  the  secession  of  Lord  Carnarvon  and 


The  Eastern  Question.  175 

Lord  Derby.  Lord  Derby  was  on  friendly  terms  with 
Brig-ht,  and  it  had  long-  been  suspected  that  Bright  exer- 
cised a  strong  influence  over  his  mind.  Beaconsfield 
and  Lord  Salisbury  went  to  Berlin,  and  brought  back 
**  peace  with  honour".  The  Prime  Minister  of  Britain 
had  approved  himself,  in  the  opinion  of  European  diplo- 
matists, one  of  the  great  statesmen  of  Europe;  and 
Britain  had  recovered  the  prestige  that  had  seemed  to 
die  with  Palmerston.  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that 
Bright  would  join  in  congratulating  the  ministers  on 
their  feat.  He  had  never  believed  in  any  danger  from 
Russia;  Britain,  he  thought^  was  afflicted  only  with  a 
*' chronic  fear  based  on  ignorance  of  the  facts";  and 
therefore  he  had  no  thanks  to  give  to  those  who  had 
averted  a  peril  created  by  a  diseased  imagination. 
Moreover,  although  many  provinces  were  happily  deli- 
vered from  the  Turkish  yoke  by  the  arms  of  Russia  and 
the  Berlin  negotiations,  part  of  Bulgaria  was  disappointed 
of  its  independence.  Bright  and  the  Liberals,  whom  he 
had  at  last  persuaded  to  regard  the  dismemberment  of 
the  Turkish  Empire  as  an  object  of  hope  rather  than 
fear,  believed  that  the  power  of  Britain  had  been  used 
**to  hand  back  to  the  Turkish  Government  a  population 
which  Russia,  left  to  herself,  had  delivered  ".  If  there 
had  been  no  war,  there  had  been  "the  menace  of  need- 
less war".  Also  the  six  millions  were  spent.  The 
Government,  said  Bright  in  1879,  had  been  "  imbecile 
at  home,  and  turbulent  and  wicked  abroad ".  At  the 
election  of  1880  he  reiterated  his  contention  that  war 
had  been  averted  not  by  the  prudence  and  skill  of  minis- 
ters but  by  the  pacific  determination  of  the  people. 

The  sober  verdict  of  history  will  never  agree  exactly 
with  the  hot  recrimination  of  partisans.  But  the  differ- 
ence between  the  conduct  of  this  country  in  1854  and 
1878  is  a  phenomenon  that  historians  will  have  to  ex- 
plain; and  no  explanation  will  be  complete  that  omits 


176  John  Bright. 

the  gradual  influence  of  Bright's  persistent  appeals  from 
ambition  and  jealousy  to  reason  and  moderation. 


Chapter    VIII. 
Last  Years. 

When  Bright  attacked  Disraeli's  foreign  policy  as 
turbulent  and  wicked,  he  was  thinking  not  only  of  the 
risk  the  Government  had  run  of  war  with  Russia,  but  of 
their  expedition  to  Afghanistan  in  pursuit  of  a  scientific 
frontier,  of  the  fighting  in  South  Africa  that  followed 
the  attempt  to  annex  the  Transvaal,  and  of  the  respon- 
sibility they  had  undertaken  in  conjunction  with  France 
for  the  good  government  of  Egypt.  All  these  transac- 
tions were  grievous  to  Bright.  He  had  so  little  sym- 
pathy with  the  national  sentiment  that  is  flattered  by 
such  enterprises  that  he  was  hardly  able  to  understand 
it,  and  was  in  the  habit  of  imputing  motives  which  the 
statesmen  attacked  could  have  disavowed  with  entire 
sincerity.  Yet  he  was  equally  sincere  in  making  the 
imputations.  He  was  not  betrayed  into  them  by  the 
spirit  of  party,  for  he  would  hold  the  same  language 
when  his  own  political  friends  committed  the  same 
off"ence.  The  latest  example  occurred  when  in  1885  all 
parties  called  for  an  expedition  against  Theebaw,  the 
bloodthirsty  tyrant  of  Burmah.  Bright,  who  had  justi- 
fied for  humanity's  sake  the  American  civil  war  and  the 
Russian  war  against  Turkey,  accused  the  newspapers 
that  were  exciting  British  sentiment  by  reports  of 
Theebaw's  transgressions  of  **  acting  in  the  interests  of 
the  civilians  and  the  officers,  all  hungry  for  more  terri- 
tory, for  more  patronage,  for  more  salaries,  for  more 
pensions,  for  more  honours  and  promotions  when  the 
war  was  over ".     The  view  that  he  uniformly  adopted 


Last  Years.  177 

of  such  adventures  having  been  sufficiently  illustrated, 
it  is  unnecessary  to  quote  his  opinions  on  the  details  of 
Beaconsfield's  imperial  policy.  Between  1870  and  1880, 
even  after  his  recovery,  he  spoke  very  rarely  in  Parlia- 
ment; and  his  condemnation  w^as  expressed  briefly  and 
in  g-eneral  terms. 

At  the  general  election  of  April,  1880,  the  Liberals 
regained  a  majorit5^  Bright  retained  his  seat  without 
difficulty,  one  of  his  opponents  being  Burnaby,  the 
famous  soldier  and  traveller.  The  election  was  imme- 
diately followed  by  the  resignation  of  Beaconsfield ;  and 
Bright  accepted  office  under  Mr.  Gladstone  as  Chancellor 
of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster.  The  policy  of  the  Conserva- 
tive Government  in  India  was  reversed;  but  in  South 
Africa  it  was  maintained  until  after  the  defeat  of  our 
forces  by  the  Boers  of  the  Transvaal  at  Majuba  Hill, 
nor  did  the  new  Government  retire  from  the  respon- 
sibility contracted  by  their  predecessors  in  Egypt. 

Bright  spoke  with  more  frequency  in  this  than  in  the 
two  previous  Parliaments.  But,  though  his  reputation 
always  ensured  a  respectful  hearing,  and  though  he 
never  spoke  without  some  traces  of  the  old  fire  and 
force,  it  was  evident  that  the  weariness  of  forty  years' 
contention  had  fallen  upon  him.  Except  his  defence 
of  the  Irish  policy  of  the  Government,  to  which  events 
not  then  foreseen  have  given  a  special  significance,  there 
is  not  much  to  record  in  this,  the  penultimate  period  of 
his  career. 

He  took  some  part  in  the  discussions  raised  by  the 
claim  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh,  member  for  Northampton,  first 
to  make  a  simple  affirmation  of  allegiance,  in  the  form 
permitted  to  Quakers,  in  place  of  the  customary  oath, 
and  afterwards,  when  It  was  proved  that  he  was  not 
included  in  the  general  permission,  to  take  the  oath  in 
spite  of  his  recorded  objection.  Bradlaugh  was  widely 
known  as  a  public  assailant  of  Christianity,  and  many 

( M  433 )  M 


178  John  Bright. 

members  were  incensed  by  his  attempt  to  use  the  forms 
of  the  House  as  an  opportunity  for  the  ostentation  of 
his  opinions  on  rehg-ion.  But  if  his  object  was  to  adver- 
tise himself  and  his  views,  the  course  which  the  House, 
rejecting  the  guidance  of  the  Government,  adopted,  was 
exactly  such  as  to  serve  such  a  purpose.  The  dignity 
of  the  Commons  was  staked,  as  in  the  case  of  Wilkes, 
upon  a  struggle  not  only  with  Bradlaugh,  but  with 
the  constitutional  rights  of  his  constituents.  They 
allowed  themselves  to  make  an  unconstitutional  use 
of  the  oath  itself,  which  had  certainly  been  intended 
not  as  a  test  of  religious  orthodoxy,  but  merely  as  a 
guarantee  of  loyalty.  Bright  refused  to  be  a  judge  of 
any  man's  religious  opinions.  **  I  have  myself  passed 
through  many  doubts,  and  have  learned  not  to  condemn 
without  sympathy,  or  not  to  condemn  at  all,  those  who 
are  unable  to  adopt  the  same  views  that  I  entertain." 
Still  more  characteristic  was  the  boldness  with  which  he 
struck  at  the  root  of  the  contention.  '*  Do  you  suppose 
that  the  Founder  of  Christianity  requires  an  oath  in  this 
House  to  defend  the  religion  which  He  founded?  Do 
you  suppose  that  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  worlds  can  be 
interested  in  the  fact  of  a  man  coming  to  this  House 
and  taking  His  name  in  vain,  or  in  a  man  being  permitted 
to  make  an  affirmation  reverently  and  honestly  in  which 
His  name  is  not  included?" 

He  supported  a  Bill  brought  In  by  Sir  W.  Harcourt, 
the  Home  Secretary,  to  protect  tenant-farmers  against 
the  depredations  of  ground  game.  He  was  still  in  favour 
of  the  entire  abolition  of  the  Game  Laws,  and  while 
supporting  the  Bill  as  one  introduced  with  *'the  honest 
object  of  relieving  farmers",  he  said  plainly  that  it  did 
not  meet  his  views  on  the  question.  His  old  antipathy 
to  the  landed  aristocracy  reappeared  in  this  discussion, 
and  Sir  W.  Harcourt  was  rather  insolently  warned  from 
the  Opposition  bench  that  if  he  wanted  to  carry  his  Bill 


Last  Years.  179 

he  would  do  well  to  '*  muzzle  his  right  hon.  colleag-ue". 
This  incident  may  be  regarded  as  the  last  scene  of  the 
historic  feud  of  cotton-spinner  and  squire.  The  Bill  was 
passed,  and  the  Game  Law  question  has  since  rested. 

In  the  first  session  of  this  Parliament  another  con- 
troversy in  which  he  was  interested  was  decided.  The 
Burials  Bill,  which  gave  to  Nonconformists  the  right, 
under  certain  restrictions,  of  burying  their  dead  with 
their  own  rites  in  graveyards  attached  to  parish  churches, 
was  passed  by  large  majorities.  This  proposal  had  at 
one  time  encountered  strong  opposition  from  the  Church. 
The  subject  was  one  peculiarly  adapted  to  Bright's  elo- 
quence, for  no  other  orator  of  his  time  could  touch  with 
such  felicity  the  springs  of  pathos  and  sentiment.  *'  I 
would  say  to  Churchmen,"  he  had  said  in  1875,  '*If  you 
were  to  deal  with  the  Nonconformists  of  this  country 
with  more  consideration  and  with  more  condescension, 
with  more  of  what  I  call  Christian  kindness  and  liberality, 
in  matters  of  this  sort,  you  would  find  that  the  strength 
of  the  Church  would  not  be  lessened  but  increased,  that 
the  hostility  with  which  in  many  parts  of  the  country 
she  is  regarded  would  diminish,  and  that  there  would  be 
a  general  subsidence  of  some  of  the  animosity  which 
must,  I  fear,  to  some  extent  prevail  where  there  is  a 
favoured  and  established  church."  There  is  evidence 
that  Bright's  appeals  exercised  a  considerable  effect  on 
the  minds  of  leading  churchmen.  Many  of  them  were  now 
disposed  to  make  the  inevitable  concession  graciously. 
Bright  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  rally  the  Oppo- 
sition on  the  change  in  their  demeanour.  "  I  have 
always  noticed  that  hon.  gentlemen  opposite,  when  they 
feel  that  their  cause  is  nearly  at  an  end,  that  a  great 
question  over  which  they  have  been  fighting  is  given  up, 
pluck  up  their  courage  and  go  to  perdition  in  a  very 
happy  frame  of  mind." 

In  the  third  year  of  the  ministry  Bright  withdrew  from 


i8o  John  Bright. 

the  Treasury  Bench.  The  establishment  of  British  con- 
trol in  Egypt,  which  is  now  recognized  as  having  proved 
the  inost  beneficent  of  Disraeli's  perilous  enterprises, 
had  been  accepted  by  Mr.  Gladstone's  Ministry.  But  it 
became  necessary  that  Britain  should  either  recede  from 
this  engagement  or  maintain  her  authority  by  force. 
Arabi,  the  War  Minister  of  the  Khedive,  a  man  strong 
in  the  affection  of  the  army,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a 
military  revolt,  the  objects  of  which  were  suspected  to 
be  the  dethronement  of  the  Khedive,  the  expulsion  of  the 
Europeans,  and  the  establishment  of  a  military  despotism. 
He  overawed  the  Khedive,  and  became  possessed  of  the 
fortress  of  Alexandria.  The  French  refused  to  join  in 
enforcing  the  authority  which  they  shared  with  Britain, 
but  the  British  Government  proceeded  to  extremities. 
On  July  II,  1882,  Alexandria  was  severely  bombarded 
by  the  British  fleet.  Four  days  later  Bright's  resig- 
nation was  announced.  It  gave  no  cause  for  surprise, 
and  he  was  content  to  give  a  brief  and  indefinite  expla- 
nation of  his  reasons.  "  For  forty  years",  he  said,  '^1 
have  endeavoured  to  teach  my  countrymen  an  opinion 
and  doctrine  which  I  hold,  that  the  moral  law  is  intended 
not  only  for  individual  life,  but  for  the  life  and  practice 
of  states  in  their  dealings  with  one  another.  I  think 
that  in  the  present  case  there  has  been  a  manifest  viola- 
tion both  of  the  international  law  and  of  the  moral  law." 
Bright  was  subject  to  some  criticism  both  for  staying 
in  the  Cabinet  while  measures  were  taken  which  involved, 
in  the  event  of  resistance,  either  stultification  or  an  appeal 
to  arms,  and  again  for  not  following  his  resignation  and 
his  assertion  of  the  moral  law  by  a  further  attack  on  the 
policy  he  condemned.  But  his  conduct  is  readily  ex- 
plained by  the  supposition  that  he  w^as  guided  through- 
out by  a  sentiment  of  strong  personal  attachment  to 
Mr.  Gladstone.  He  would  not  desert  his  leader  in  spite 
of   his    disapproval    so    long    as   a   peaceful    issue  was 


Last  Years.  i8i 

possible.  Having"  satisfied  his  conscience  by  resigna- 
tion, he  would  not  embarrass  his  friend  by  criticisms 
that  could  serve  no  practical  purpose.  It  is  evident 
that  according*  to  his  principle  of  non-intervention  the 
British  had  no  business  to  go  to  Egypt  at  all.  But 
when  they  were  once  there,  Bright  was  not  bound  by 
any  general  principle  of  action  to  which  he  had  ever 
committed  himself  to  call  for  withdrawal.  He  had  never 
suggested  that  we  should  retire  from  India.  When  the 
Government  of  which  he  was  a  member  was  confronted 
by  the  alternative  of  either  engfaging*  in  warfare  or  sub- 
mitting-, for  the  sake  of  peace,  to  a  disturber  of  peace, 
he  was  in  a  dilemma  of  which  the  pacific  principles  that 
he  cherished  do  not  appear  to  offer  any  solution.  He  at 
least  did  not  disclose  the  solution.  He  held  his  peace ; 
and  we  are  left  in  ignorance  of  the  method  of  dealing- 
with  the  Eg-yptian  difficulty  which  he  may  have  suggested 
to  his  colleagues.  During-  the  rest  of  his  life  he  often 
recurred  in  his  popular  addresses,  with  an  added  touch 
of  melancholy,  to  the  old  topics  of  the  waste  of  the  blood 
and  treasure  of  nations  on  unworthy  ambitions.  But  he 
treated  the  question  still  in  g-eneral  terms.  In  the  year 
following-  his  resignation  he  delivered  an  address  as 
Lord  Rector  of  the  University  of  Glasg-ow,  an  office  for 
which  his  competitor  had  been  Mr.  Ruskin.  Here  again 
he  poured  out  a  flood  of  inspiring-  eloquence  upon  the 
wickedness  of  a  warlike  and  turbulent  foreigfn  policy. 
The  democracy  had  disappointed  his  hopes;  and  he 
may  be  said  to  have  spent  his  old  age  '*  ing-eminating- 
'  Peace,  peace'." 

His  release  from  the  restrictions  of  office  enabled 
him  to  break  silence  on  the  question  of  disestablish- 
ment. He  had  taken  many  earlier  opportunities  of  de- 
claring his  sympathy  with  the  purposes  of  the  Liberation 
Society.  In  1875  he  had  devoted  a  very  vivacious  speech 
at  Birmingham  to  the  Public  Worship  Bill.     This  Bill, 


i82  John  Bright. 

designed  for  the  repression  of  ritualistic  extravagances, 
had  been  introduced  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  and  effusively  welcomed  by  poli- 
ticians of  both  parties  in  the  Commons.  It  had  been 
passed  with  approximate  unanimity.  "I  never  knew 
the  House  of  Commons  unanimous  and  enthusiastic 
about  a  thing,"  said  Bright,  **  except  when  it  did  not 
know  what  it  was  doing  and  where  it  was  going."  The 
clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  "are  set  over  us  by 
the  State  as  instructors  of  morals  and  religion,  and  yet 
their  own  friends  declare  that  their  conduct  is  so  lawless 
that  it  is  necessary  to  have  special  legislation  to  keep 
them  in  order  ",  He  conducted  his  audience  to  the  con- 
clusion that  "the  Church,  whether  we  consider  it  as  a 
political  institution  or  a  religious  institution,  is  greatly 
out  of  harmony  with  the  time".  But  he  added,  "  I  am 
not  asking  you  or  any  party  or  section  of  a  party  to 
plunge  into  a  violent  agitation  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
Established  Church  of  England.  I  think  it  would  be 
a  great  calamity  indeed  that  a  change  like  that  should 
come  through  violent  hatred  and  angry  discussion — that 
it  should  be  accomplished  by  a  tempest  which  would  be 
nothing  but  the  turmoil  of  a  great  revolution."  In  1883, 
hov/ever,  he  gave  countenance  to  the  crusade  against 
the  establishment  by  taking  the  chair  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Liberation  Society  in  Spurgeon's  Tabernacle.  He 
said  that  he  had  been  forced  early  in  life  by  his  study  of 
the  persecution  to  which  his  own  sect  had  been  subject 
after  the  Restoration  to  ask  himself  the  question:  "Is 
the  State  the  better  for  its  union  with  the  Church,  or 
the  Church  the  better  for  its  union  with  the  State?" 
When  it  was  replied  that  "the  Church  tends  to  make 
the  State  more  Christian,  that  is,  more  just  and  gentle, 
more  merciful  and  peaceful ",  he  tested  this  contention 
by  the  behaviour  of  the  Bishops  in  the  House  of  Lords; 
and  finding  that  they  had  resisted  the  abolition  of  slavery 


Lrast  Years.  183 

and  the  repeal  of  capital  punishment  for  larceny,  and 
had  neglected  other  opportunities  of  Christianizing-  the 
policy  of  the  State,  he  concluded  that  the  union  had  had 
rather  the  opposite  effect.  He  did  not  touch  on  the 
question  of  disendowment,  though  it  is  proper  to  infer 
from  his  profession  of  *^  perfect  accord  "  with  the  Libera- 
tion Society  that  to  him  also  disestablishment  meant 
disendowment. 

Brig-ht's  seventieth  birthday  was  celebrated  by  public 
demonstrations  of  the  respect  and  affection  of  the  work- 
men in  the  employ  of  his  firm  and  of  his  Rochdale 
townsmen.  Two  years  later,  in  June,  1883,  the  com- 
pletion of  his  twenty-fifth  year  of  parliamentary  service 
to  the  borough  of  Birmingham  was  celebrated  in  a 
fashion  to  which  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  parallel  in 
the  history  of  parliamentary  representation.  He  was 
received  by  his  constituents  with  such  honours  as  are 
rarely  paid  except  to  royal  personages.  An  imposing 
procession  carried  him  through  the  town  in  the  midst 
of  vast  crowds  of  cheering  citizens.  In  the  presence  of 
a  throng  of  twenty  thousand  persons  he  received  and 
acknowledged  the  gifts  of  his  constituents  and  addresses 
from  nearly  two  hundred  political  associations  and  clubs. 
Nothing  could  surpass  the  enthusiasm  of  these  festivi- 
ties; and  no  more  memorable  example  has  ever  been 
exhibited  of  the  spirit  of  gratitude  of  which  it  is  some- 
times cynically  said  that  our  political  life  is  destitute. 
The  secret  of  this  extraordinary  popularity  is  not  far 
to  seek.  His  eloquence  no  doubt  contributed  to  it. 
Yet  if  there  were  but  few  orators  of  his  time  worthy  to 
be  classed  with  him,  English  public  life  produces  many 
popular  speakers  of  the  second  rank,  and  the  crowning 
grace  of  style  that  raises  him,  in  the  estimation  of  critics, 
into  the  order  of  the  few  whose  speeches  are  an  abiding 
possession,  was  not  a  quality  that  would  captivate  the 
affection  of  a  multitude  of  plain  working  men.    A  tran§- 


184  John  Bright. 

parent  sincerity  that  never  condescends  to  dexterous 
evasion  or  plausible  excuse  is  the  quality  which  the 
people  of  this  country  chiefly  delight  to  honour.  Of  all 
the  public  men  of  the  century,  Bright  had  won  the  highest 
reputation  for  saying  exactly  what  he  meant  and  for 
doing  exactly  what  approved  itself  to  his  conscience  as 
righteous. 

It  was  generally  recognized  that  the  household  suff- 
rage established  in  the  boroughs  must  be  followed  by 
household  suffrage  in  the  counties.  Bright  had  sup- 
ported the  motion  regularly  introduced  by  Mr.  Trevelyan 
for  an  equal  franchise,  and  saw  with  satisfaction  the 
Liberal  Government  addressing  itself  to  the  necessary 
completion  of  the  scheme  of  Reform.  It  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  this  measure  should  be  heralded  by  such 
popular  agitation  as  had  preceded  the  Reforms  of  1832 
and  1866.  The  villagers  who  were  desirous,  or  who 
were  assumed  to  be  desirous,  of  admission  to  citizen- 
ship, a  scattered  population  and  slow  of  movement, 
could  not  be  gathered  together  in  processions  or  mass 
meetings;  nor  was  any  popular  clamour  necessary  to 
stimulate  the  Ministry.  Meetings  were  indeed  held; 
but  they  were  rather  the  rallies  of  a  party  anxious  to 
carry  its  principles  to  a  conclusion,  and  also  to  recruit 
its  strength  by  a  new  enlistment,  than  demonstrations 
of  unenfranchised  men  knocking  at  the  gates  of  the  con- 
stitution. Bright  took  some  share  in  these  proceedings. 
He  attended  a  Reform  Conference  at  Leeds,  at  which 
there  was  no  lack  of  enthusiasm ;  but  it  was  an  organ- 
ized enthusiasm,  and  the  creak  of  the  machinery  was 
audible.^ 

In  the  year  1884  the  Government  proposed  to  deal 
with  this  question  in  two  Bills,  extending  the  suffrage 

1  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  course  of  events  preceding  and  accompanying 
the  third  Reform  Act,  see  the  first  volume  of  this  series,  The  Rise  of  Demo- 
cracy, ch.  xiii.,  by  J.  H.  Rose. 


Last  Years.  185 

In  the  first,  and  making-  the  redistribution  of  seats 
necessitated  by  the  enlargement  of  the  rural  constitu- 
encies In  a  second  Bill,  which  was  to  occupy  the  session 
of  1885.  The  Opposition  met  the  Bill  with  an  amend- 
ment declining  to  consider  the  extension  of  the  franchise 
unless  a  measure  of  redistribution  were  at  the  same  time 
submitted.  Bright  was  put  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle, 
as  though  to  revive  the  recollection  of  the  days  when 
he  was  the  leader  of  an  impassioned  popular  movement, 
and  brought  to  the  House  the  inspiration  of  the  great 
meetings.  He  spoke  immediately  after  Lord  John 
Manners,  who  moved  the  Conservative  amendment. 
But  though  he  spoke,  as  always,  with  conviction,  the 
fire  of  1865  was  not  easily  to  be  rekindled;  and  he  had 
the  unusual  experience  of  seeing  the  audience  that  had 
crowded  the  House  to  hear  the  old  orator  on  the  old 
theme  diminish  as  he  spoke. 

The  Bill  passed  the  Commons ;  but  the  Lords,  encou- 
raged to  resistance  by  the  apparent  failure  of  popular 
enthusiasm,  while  recording  their  assent  to  the  principle 
of  equal  franchise,  postponed  their  acceptance  of  the 
Bill  until  the  production  of  the  scheme  of  redistribution. 
If  the  Liberals  of  the  boroughs  had  called  for  the  enfran- 
chisement of  the  rural  labourers  with  little  more  than 
a  drilled  and  factitious  earnestness,  they  were  cordially 
indignant  when  the  decision  of  their  representatives  on 
such  a  question  was  overruled  by  the  hereditary  chamber. 
Bright  led  the  attack  on  the  Lords  with  all  his  old  im- 
petuosity. "  It  was  once  said  in  ages  past  that  the 
path  to  the  Temple  of  Honour  lay  through  the  Temple 
of  Virtue.  The  law-making  peer  goes  into  the  Temple 
of  Honour  through  the  sepulchre  of  a  dead  ancestor." 
He  quoted  against  the  peers,  who  were  arrogant  because 
undisturbed  by  any  fear  of  a  coming  election,  some 
verses  of  the  73rd  Psalm.  ''They  are  not  in  trouble 
as  other  men,  neither  are  they  plagued  like  other  men ; 


i86  John  Bright. 

therefore  pride  compasseth  them  about  as  a  chain;  they 
speak  wickedly  concerning  oppression,  they  speak  loftily." 
In  the  same  speech  he  exhorted  his  constituents  to  **curb 
the  nobles  as  their  fathers  had  curbed  the  kings".  Many 
proposals  for  facilitating  this  feat  were  produced  in  the 
excitement  of  the  hour.  Bright  selected  for  his  approval 
the  suggestion  that  the  veto  of  the  Upper  House  should 
be  disallowed  in  the  case  of  a  Bill  sent  up  from  the 
Commons  a  second  time  after  its  first  rejection  by  the 
Lords. 

Other  Liberal  leaders  however  showed  a  strong  indis- 
position to  raise  so  grave  a  question  of  constitutional 
reform,  and  preferred  to  avail  themselves  of  the  door 
which  the  Lords  had  left  open  for  accommodation. 
Parliament  was  convened  for  an  autumn  session;  and 
the  dispute  between  the  two  Houses  was  soon  con- 
ciliated. The  scheme  of  redistribution  proposed  by  the 
Government  was  shown  to  the  Conservative  leaders, 
and  declared  by  them  satisfactory.  Having  carried 
their  point  that  the  extension  of  the  franchise  should  be 
accompanied  by  a  measure  giving  adequate  representa- 
tion to  the  counties,  the  Lords  accepted  the  Franchise 
Bill.  The  Redistribution  Bill  passed  without  difficulty 
early  in  the  session  of  1885.  This  measure  approxi- 
mated to  the  Chartist  ideal  of  equal  electoral  districts 
as  nearly  as  was  possible  without  entire  disregard  of 
ancient  boundaries.  The  few  small  constituencies  that 
still  remained  were  mostly  in  Ireland.  Bright  had  been 
prominent  in  supporting,  against  those  who  asked  for 
a  more  exact  distribution  of  seats  according  to  the 
number  of  electors,  the  claim  of  Ireland  to  retain,  not- 
withstanding the  decrease  of  her  proportionate  popu- 
lation, the  representation  apportioned  by  the  Act  of 
Union.  His  influence  also  contributed  to  the  final 
relinquishment  of  all  plans  designed  to  secure  the  repre- 
sentation of  minorities.      He  had  always  regarded  these 


Last  Years.  187 

devices  with  peculiar  aversion ;  and  their  disappearance 
must  count  as  a  victory  of  popular  over  philosophical 
radicalism. 

The  Parliament  elected  in  1880  will  be  remembered  in 
history,  not  so  much  for  its  completion  of  the  work  of 
democratizing-  the  constitution,  or  for  its  other  efforts  in 
legislation,  as  for  the  developments  it  witnessed  of  the 
perplexed  Irish  problem.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to 
attempt  more  than  the  briefest  summary  of  the  series  of 
events  that  led  to  the  momentous  change  of  the  Irish 
policy  of  the  Liberal  party  in  1886,  and  to  Brig-ht's  rup- 
ture with  the  colleagues  with  whom  he  had  associated 
himself  for  so  many  years.  The  course  of  events  was 
such  as  to  bring  into  relief  a  side  of  Bright's  public 
character  and  of  his  political  creed  which  had  indeed 
always  been  discernible,  but  had  never  had  occasion  to 
display  itself  so  prominently. 

The  term  Home  Rule  had  long  been  familiar  to  the 
House  of  Commons  when  the  Parliament  of  1880 
assembled;  and  for  ten  years  the  case  of  the  Irish 
Home -rulers  had  been  presented  to  the  House  with 
ability  and  moderation,  but  without  much  effect.  As 
early  as  the  beginning  of  1872  Bright  had  had  occasion 
to  contradict  a  report  circulated  at  an  Irish  election  that 
he  was  **an  advocate  of  what  is  called  Home  Rule  in 
Ireland".  He  wrote;  "To  have  two  representative 
legislative  assemblies  or  parliaments  in  the  United 
Kingdom  would,  in  my  opinion,  be  an  intolerable  mis- 
chief; and  I  think  no  sensible  man  can  wish  for  two 
within  the  limits  of  the  present  United  Kingdom,  who 
does  not  wish  the  United  Kingdom  to  become  two  or 
more  nations,  entirely  separated  from  one  another  ". 

In  1879  Isaac  Butt,  the  first  leader  of  the  Home  Rule 
party,  had  died,  and  had  been  succeeded  by  Mr.  Shaw. 
In  the  same  year  the  Land  League  had  been  formed  by 
the  efforts  of  Mr.  Michael  Davitt  and  others,  and  was 


i88  John  Bright. 

conducting,  both  by  the  methods  of  the  English  leagues, 
and  by  other  methods  which  those  leagues  had  sedu- 
lously avoided,  an  agitation  for  Home  Rule  and  for 
further  reforms  in  the  Irish  land-system.  When  the 
Parliament  met,  Mr.  Parnell,  who  had  been  elected  for 
Meath  in  1875,  sat  as  the  leader  of  an  advanced  section 
of  Home-rulers,  apart  from  those  who  under  Shaw's 
leadership  still  offered  a  qualified  support  to  the  Liberal 
Government.  This  section  of  the  Irish  party  had  already 
in  the  former  Parliament  initiated  the  Irish  method  of 
enlisting  the  interest  of  the  House  in  Irish  grievances 
by  obstructing  its  ordinary  business. 

The  first  Irish  measure  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Ministry 
was  conciliatory.  A  Bill  was  passed  by  the  Commons 
providing  for  compensation  for  disturbance  to  evicted 
tenants,  even  when  the  eviction  was  for  omission  to  pay 
rent,  provided  that  omission  was  due  to  the  failure  of 
crops.  This  Bill  was  rejected  by  the  Lords  in  August. 
Its  rejection  was  followed  by  agrarian  crimes  in  Ire- 
land; and  the  organized  persecution  of  Captain  Boycott 
furnished  agitators  with  a  striking  example  of  a  new 
method,  and  added  a  new  word  to  every  European  lan- 
guage. In  the  same  autumn  Parnell  and  other  Irish 
leaders  were  prosecuted  for  seditious  conspiracy;  but 
the  jury  disagreed.  In  1881  a  Bill  authorizing  the  Lord- 
lieutenant  to  imprison  without  trial  persons  suspected 
of  treasonable  practices  or  intimidation  was  passed.  It 
was  followed  by  a  Land  Bill  designed  to  establish  Fair 
Rent,  Fixity  of  Tenure,  and  Free  Sale;  the  first  of  the 
three  F's  being  secured  by  the  appointment  of  a  Land 
Court,  with  power  to  fix  judicial  rents.  On  October  13 
Mr.  Gladstone's  announcement  of  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Par- 
nell was  received  with  great  enthusiasm  in  England, 
and  with  unmeasured  indignation  in  Ireland.  Parnell 
retaliated  by  issuing  the  famous  No-rent  manifesto. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  year  reports  of  a  convention 


Last  Years.  189 

of  American  Irishmen  and  Irish  politicians,  and  of 
speeches  there  uttered  that  burned  with  implacable  and 
unscrupulous  enmity  to  the  Crown  and  people  of  Eng- 
land, filled  Englishmen  of  all  conditions  and  opinions 
with  strong  indignation,  and  seemed  for  the  moment  to 
separate  the  Parnellites  more  widely  than  ever  from  the 
sympathies  of  all  the  English  parties  alike. 

In  the  spring  of  1882  the  Government  decided  to  re- 
lease Parnell.  This  release  was  sharply  criticised  by 
the  Opposition,  and  was  displeasing  to  Forster,  the 
Irish  Secretary,  who  had  made  himself  grievously  un- 
popular in  Ireland  by  his  rigour  in  using  the  powers 
given  to  him  by  the  Coercion  Bill.  He  resigned,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish.  On  May  6, 
the  day  of  his  arrival  in  Dublin,  Cavendish  and  Burke, 
one  of  the  permanent  officials  of  the  Irish  Government, 
were  assassinated  by  a  secret  society  in  Phcenix  Park. 
A  new  Coercion  Act  was  immediately  carried.  The 
Irish  juries  having  habitually  failed  to  convict  in  cases 
where  the  evidence  was  clear,  provision  was  made  to 
substitute  a  special  commission  for  the  jury.  The 
remedial  measure  of  the  year  was  a  Bill  providing  for 
the  payment  of  arrears  of  rent  out  of  the  Irish  Church 
fund.  In  the  same  session  a  new  weapon  was  forged 
to  be  used  against  Parnell's  obstruction,  the  House  of 
Commons  assuming  the  power  to  limit  the  duration  of 
its  debates. 

Throughout  this  troubled  period  Bright  gave  a  cordial 
support  to  the  policy  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Government. 
To  the  Irish  Nationalists  his  speeches  were  often  highly 
offensive.  He  was  frequently  selected  by  them  as  the 
object  of  their  most  animated  invective,  and  the  disap- 
pointment they  professed  at  finding  him  among  their 
most  vehement  antagonists  was  not  necessarily  insincere, 
however  unreasonable  it  may  seem  to  the  candid  stu- 
dent of  his  career.      He  was   almost   the  only  English 


igo  John  Bright. 

statesman  of  eminence  who  had  attained  a  high  degree 
of  popularity  with  the  Irish  people;  and  the  opposition, 
always  resolute  and  sometimes  acrid,  which  he  offered 
to  the  demands  of  the  party  led  by  Parnell,  was  an 
obstacle  to  be  broken  down,  as  such  obstacles  are 
broken  down  in  politics,  by  the  battery  of  vituperation. 
A  just  examination  of  all  his  speeches  and  letters  on  the 
Irish  question  will  discover  nothing  to  support  any 
charge  of  inconsistency,  or  to  justify  the  surprise  which 
the  Parnellites  expressed  when  he  denounced  their 
methods  and  rejected  their  proposals  as  dishonest. 

Bright  was  above  all  things  a  lover  of  order.  He  had 
striven  with  surprising  success  to  restrain  within  the 
limits  of  order  a  hungry  populace  calling  for  bread,  and 
a  voteless  populace  clamouring  for  citizenship.  No  man 
was  more  strongly  disposed  to  abhor  the  disorderly,  not 
to  say  criminal,  methods  of  agitation  practised  in  Ire- 
land— the  systematic  breaches  of  contract,  the  refusal  of 
rent,  the  boycotting,  the  hamstringing,  the  moonlight 
outrages,  the  threatening  letters,  the  secret  assassina- 
tions. He  was  a  democrat;  and  for  democracy's  sake 
he  was  troubled  at  heart  by  an  infection  of  the  Irish 
populace  that  seemed  in  danger  of  bringing  democracy 
itself  into  contempt.  His  dislike  to  intimidation  is 
measured  by  the  earnestness  with  which  he  had  cried 
for  the  Ballot;  and  the  intimidation  of  the  Land  League 
and  the  priests,  whatever  may  be  pleaded  in  its  excuse, 
was  in  itself  vastly  more  cruel  than  any  intimidation 
charged  against  the  English  squires.  He  always  strove, 
even  against  the  weight  of  evidence,  to  relieve  the  Irish 
populace  from  the  burden  of  opprobrium  by  throwing  it 
wholly  upon  their  leaders.  If  he  judged  the  Irish  mem- 
bers too  harshly, — and  no  man  judged  them  more  severely, 
■ — it  was  because  his  judgment  was  prejudiced  by  his 
desire  to  save  the  credit  of  the  Irish  people. 

He  had  devoted  himself  to  reforms  intended  to  purge 


Last  Years.  191 

the  House  of  Commons  of  the  excessive  influence  of  a 
dominant  class.  He  had  succeeded;  and  the  House 
was  at  last,  to  his  mind,  a  leg-islature  capable  of  large 
and  popular  achievements.  When  therefore  the  Irish 
members  tried  to  impair  by  obstruction  the  legislative 
activity  of  the  Commons,  Bright  regarded  their  action 
with  the  indignation  of  an  artificer  who  should  see  a 
machine  that  had  been  repaired  and  improved  by  his 
own  skill  and  patience  thrown  out  of  gear  by  the  malice 
of  mischievous  enemies ;  and  when  they  adopted  a  course 
of  action  avowedly  based  on  disbelief  in  the  capacity 
and  inclination  of  the  Imperial  Parliament  to  redress  the 
grievances  of  their  constituents,  Bright  could  not  admit 
that  distrust  without  admitting  also  the  failure  of  his 
own  labours.  He  could  not  bear  to  hear  the  reproach 
of  neglect  of  popular  interests  and  contempt  of  popular 
appeals,  which  he  himself  had  urged  against  the  olig- 
archy, repeated  against  the  perfected  organ  of  the 
English  democracy.  Parliament  had,  indeed,  actually 
adopted  measures  of  justice  and  conciliation  that  had 
been  devised  by  his  sagacity  or  approved  by  his  advo- 
cacy; the  Church  had  been  disestablished,  the  Land 
Law  reconstructed,  the  franchise  extended ;  and  the  out- 
cry of  the  Parnellites  sounded  in  his  ears  like  a  declara- 
tion of  the  incompetence  of  himself  and  his  party. 

Finally,  Bright  was  an  Englishman.  His  love  of 
England  was  not  the  less  fervid  though  he  disdained 
the  national  vainglory  and  imperial  ambition  that  feed 
the  same  passion  in  other  men.  All  the  prejudices  and 
limitations  that  can  be  with  any  reason  attributed  to  him 
are  of  the  sort  commonly  called  insular.  Hence  his 
indignation  admitted  no  excuse  for  the  vindictiveness  of 
the  Chicago  Convention.  Hence,  too,  he  was  not  pre- 
disposed to  assign  any  weight  to  the  contention  that 
Ireland  must  be  governed  by  Irish  and  not  by  English 
ideas.     The  ideas  of  English  Liberalism  seemed  to  him 


192  John  Bright. 

good  enoug^h  not  only  for  Ireland  but  for  the  whole 
human  race.  They  were  as  sacred  and  universal,  he 
often  said,  as  **the  laws  that  were  g-iven  amidst  the 
thunders  of  Sinai  ".  Thus  his  principles,  his  prejudices, 
his  achievements,  his  experience,  all  combined  to  set 
him  in  an  attitude  of  resolute  defiance  to  the  leaders  of 
the  national  movement  in  Ireland. 

Nothing  moved  Bright's  indignation  more  strongly 
than  the  comparison  between  the  behaviour  of  the  Land 
League  and  that  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  '*  From 
1839  to  1846",  he  said,  *'no  man  ever  heard  any  of  the 
recognized  leaders,  or  lecturers,  or  speakers  of  the 
League  say  anything  that  was  calculated  to  bring  the 
people  to  disobey  the  law,  and  to  the  violence  we  have 
seen  in  Ireland.  There  was  strong  language  used.  I 
am  not  a  bit  ashamed  of  strong  language.  But  it  did 
not  stimulate  any  man  to  violence.  We  directed  the 
people  to  political  efforts  and  to  the  ultimate  justice  of 
Parliament  for  the  remedy  of  their  grievance.  What  is 
it  that  these  gentlemen  have  done?  They  have  to  a 
large  extent  demoralized  the  people  whom  they  professed 
to  befriend." 

In  a  speech  made  in  November,  1880,  during  the  dis- 
quietude that  followed  the  rejection  of  the  Compensation 
for  Disturbance  Bill,  Bright  said:  **  Is  there  a  remedy 
for  this  state  of  things  ?  Force  is  not  a  remedy.  There 
are  times  when  it  may  be  necessary,  and  when  its  em- 
ployment may  be  absolutely  unavoidable.  But  for  my 
part  I  would  rather  discuss  measures  of  relief  as  mea- 
sures of  remedy  than  measures  of  force,  whose  influence 
is  only  temporary,  and  in  the  long  run,  I  believe,  disas- 
trous." A  few  months  later  he  was  supporting  a  strin- 
gent measure  of  force.  But  this  Bill  satisfied  his  condi- 
tion, because  it  was  accompanied  by  a  remedial  measure 
—the  Irish  Land  Bill  of  1881. 

His  contributions  to  the  discussion  of  the  Land  Bill 


Last  Years.  193 

were  not  important.  There  were  five  or  six  hundred 
thousand  tenants,  he  said,  who  made  public  opinion  for 
good  or  evil  agfainst  fourteen  thousand  proprietors,  who 
could  by  no  means  stand  up  against  it.  **The  opinion 
of  property  is  always  in  favour  of  property.  The  opinion 
of  people  who  have  no  property  is  not  any  very  great 
safeguard  to  people  who  have  property.  If  land  is  to  be 
made  secure  in  Ireland,  it  must  be  by  a  system  which 
by  dividing  the  property  in  land  will  furnish  it  with  a 
multitude  of  defences."  With  such  terse  and  sagacious 
sayings  as  this  he  illustrated  the  general  purpose  of  the 
Bill;  but  in  accordance  with  a  custom  imposed  on  him 
by  his  consciousness  of  the  limits  of  his  powers,  he  left 
to  others  the  defence  of  the  methods  proposed. 

When  he  addressed  his  constituents  in  January,  1882, 
he  defended  the  policy  of  coercion.  ''What  I  am  in 
favour  of  is  as  much  freedom  as  will  give  security  to 
freedom.  But  I  am  not  in  favour  of  that  freedom  that 
would  destroy  it."  There  were  English  Liberals  to 
whom  the  suspension  of  habeas  corpus  and  like  measures 
seemed  a  more  grievous  evil  than  the  organized  persecu- 
tion of  the  Irish  societies.  ''  I  am  driven  to  the  belief", 
said  Bright,  "that  some  of  our  friends  are  to  some 
extent  ignorant  of  principles  on  which  alone  democracy 
can  be  made  tolerable  in  any  country.  What  would 
these  gentlemen  do  on  board  ship?  In  a  storm  they 
might  protest  if  the  captain  took  in  canvas  or  closed 
down  the  hatches.  Or  if  there  happened  to  be  any 
attempt  at  mutiny  or  piracy,  they  might  object  to  the 
captain  exerting  his  powers  and  putting  the  troublesome 
men  in  irons.  They  might  prefer  the  loss  of  the  ship  to 
the  infringement  of  their  democratic  ideas  of  freedom." 

Bright  eagerly  supported  the  measure  by  which  the 
House  of  Commons  sought  to  free  itself  from  the 
obstruction  of  the  Irish  members.  '*I  believe",  he  had 
said  at  the  Mansion  House  in  1881,  ''that  the  debates 

(  M  433  )  N 


194  John  Bright. 

might  be  shortened ;  that  is,  when  a  man  has  said  what 
the  House  evidently  considers  enougfh,  there  should  be 
some  mode  of  reducing"  him  to  silence."  When  the 
Closure  was  proposed  he  addressed  himself  to  the  fallacy 
that  the  rig-ht  assumed  by  a  deliberative  assembly  of 
limiting  its  own  debates  was  at  variance  with  freedom 
of  speech.  "What  I  have  always  understood  by  free- 
dom of  speech  was  not  so  much  the  quantity  of  the 
speech  as  the  quality.  It  is  freedom  of  speech  when 
you  can  say  whatever  you  think  right,  and  when  neither 
the  power  of  the  Crown  on  the  one  hand  nor  the  law 
of  libel  on  the  other  can  interfere  with  you."  The  Irish 
members,  he  said,  were  ''at  liberty  to  hold  their 
opinions — at  liberty  to  conspire  and  rebel;  but  they 
were  not  at  liberty  to  make  it  impossible  for  the 
imperial  Parliament  to  transact  the  business  of  the 
nation  ". 

The  Conservative  Opposition  joined  the  Nationalists 
in  resisting  this  proposal.  Bright's  indignation  at  this 
coalescence  inspired  a  remark  that  was  submitted  to  the 
censure  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Speaking  of  the 
Conservatives  at  his  silver  celebration  at  Birmingham 
he  said:  ''They  are  found  in  alliance  with  an  Irish 
rebel  party,  the  main  portion  of  whose  funds  for  the 
purpose  of  agitation  comes  directly  from  the  avowed 
enemies  of  England,  and  whose  oath  of  allegiance  is 
broken  by  their  association  with  those  enemies.  The 
reform  that  is  coming  and  must  come  cannot  long  be 
delayed,  for  it  must  suppress  the  power  and  close  the 
era  of  the  men  who  now  afflict  the  House  of  Commons 
and  from  night  to  night  insult  the  majesty  of  the  British 
people."  A  week  later  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  the 
leader  of  the  Opposition,  moved  that  this  language 
constituted  a  breach  of  the  privileges  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Bright  withdrew  the  word  alliance,  by 
which  he  said  he  had  intended  to  imply  no  more  than 


Last  Years.  195 

that  the  Conservatives  and  the  Nationalists  were  acting' 
together.  But  he  refused  to  withdraw  or  modify  his 
description  of  the  Irish  members.  He  repeated  his 
charges;  and  the  Liberals,  not  yet  prescient  of  1886, 
applauded  him  with  enthusiasm.  Although  his  with- 
drawal of  the  word  alliance  seemed  to  remove  the 
immediate  cause  of  offence  so  far  as  the  Conservatives 
were  concerned,  many  of  them  supported  the  protest 
of  the  Nationalists  against  Bright's  imputation  of  dis- 
loyalty by  voting"  in  favour  of  Northcote's  resolution. 

Two  years  later  this  incident  was  repeated  in  circum- 
stances that  made  it  still  more  ominous.  In  June,  1885, 
the  Liberal  Government,  weakened  in  public  estimation 
by  the  Egyptian  disasters,  was  unexpectedly  defeated 
in  a  division  on  the  Budget  by  the  Nationalists  and 
Conservatives;  and  a  Conservative  Government  suc- 
ceeded. Lord  Spencer,  who  as  Lord-lieutenant,  with 
Mr.  Trevelyan  as  Secretary,  had  administered  the  law 
in  Ireland  with  courage  and  stringency,  had  been  as- 
sailed by  the  Nationalist  leaders  with  an  acrimony  that 
far  exceeded  the  rather  wide  limits  permitted  by  the 
custom  of  our  party  warfare.  Accusations  were  brought 
against  him  which  are  now  admitted  to  be  absurd,  and 
which  were  at  the  time  regarded  by  his  friends  as 
insincere.  Some  of  the  younger  Conservatives  had 
permitted  themselves  to  join  in  the  less  offensive  of  the 
attacks  on  Lord  Spencer;  and  there  were  other  indica- 
tions which  suggested  the  fear  that,  if  the  young  Con- 
servatives had  their  way,  a  bid  would  be  made  by  their 
party  for  the  Parnellite  vote.  Such  was  the  suspicion 
of  the  Liberals;  such  too  the  expectation  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  Parnell,  who  ordered  the  Irish  vote  in  the 
English  constituencies  to  be  given  to  supporters  of  the 
new  Government. 

Lord  Spencer  was  entertained  at  a  banquet  by  his 
political  friends.     There  was  much  plain  speaking,  and 


196  John  Bright. 

Brlght's  was,  according^  to  his  habit,  the  plainest. 
"Who",  he  asked,  ''are  Lord  Spencer's  assailants? 
They  are  to  be  found  in  some  conductors  of  the  Irish 
press,  and  in  some  of  those  who  profess  to  be  repre- 
sentatives of  Ireland.  These  men  are  disloyal  to  the 
Crown,  and  directly  hostile  to  Great  Britain.  They 
have  obstructed  all  legislation  which  was  intended  to 
discover  or  to  prevent  or  to  punish  crime.  They  have 
insulted  and  denounced  every  man  in  Ireland  concerned 
with  the  just  administration  of  the  law.  They  have 
attacked  indiscriminately  every  magistrate  by  whom 
any  guilty  man  has  been  convicted.  They  have  ex- 
hibited a  boundless  sympathy  for  criminals  and  mur- 
derers. There  has  been  no  word  of  pity  for  their 
victims." 

When  these  words  were  read  on  the  motion  of  an 
Irish  member  to  the  House  of  Commons,  the  whole 
Liberal  party  loyally  associated  themselves  with  Bright 
by  their  applause.  Again  he  refused  to  apologize. 
''  Every  word  of  my  speech  was  accurate  and  true. 
Two  hundred  of  the  first  men  of  England  accepted  it  as 
such."  He  put  the  supposition  that  he  had  said  the 
contradictory  of  these  remarks,  and  asked  whether  the 
Irish  members  would  not  have  taken  such  a  speech  as 
insultingly  ironical.  Northcote  refused  to  support  the 
motion  that  Bright  had  committed  a  breach  of  privilege; 
however,  he  ''much  regretted"  Bright's  speech,  and 
sympathetically  advised  the  Irish  members  that  "hav- 
ing repudiated  these  remarks  with  indignation  they  could 
afford  to  leave  them  unnoticed ".  Lord  Hartington 
retorted  by  declaring  that  nine-tenths  of  the  people  of 
England  would  admit  the  truth  of  what  Bright  had 
said.  For  this  indiscretion  he  was  in  his  turn  rebuked 
by  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  the  leader  of  the  younger 
Conservatives,  who  was  designated  as  Bright's  antago- 
nist at  the  coming  election. 


Last  Years.  197 

Birming-ham  had  been  divided  by  the  Redistribution 
Act  into  seven  parliamentary  divisions.  Bright  was 
nominated  for  the  Central  Division,  in  which  the  chief 
strength  of  the  local  Conservative  party  lay.  In  Lord 
Randolph  Churchill  he  met  with  the  strongest  opponent 
the  Conservative  party  could  place  in  the  field  against 
him.  Churchill  had  seen  more  clearly  than  older  Con- 
servatives the  changes  of  policy,  of  manner,  and  of 
organization,  that  were  necessary  to  adapt  the  aristo- 
cratic party  to  a  democratic  environment.  His  popu- 
larity was  then  at  its  zenith,  and  he  was  the  political 
hero  of  the  younger  generation.  By  his  opposition  to 
coercion,  and  by  joining  in  the  Parnellite  attacks  on 
Lord  Spencer  and  Bright,  he  had  secured  the  Irish  vote. 
Although  Bright  was,  for  the  first  time  in  his  career, 
meeting  an  opponent  whose  personal  qualifications  were 
formidable,  he  did  not  relinquish  his  dignified  custom  of 
taking  no  share  in  the  personalities  of  the  contest.  In 
his  election  speeches  he  dealt  chiefly  with  a  recent  and 
temporary  revival  of  protectionist  doctrine  under  the 
specious  name  of  Fair  Trade.  The  contest  was  sharp, 
and  the  issue  at  first  doubtful.  In  the  end  Bright  was 
returned  by  a  large  majority. 

At  this  general  election  the  Liberal  party  throughout 
the  country  had  made  effective  use  of  the  suspicion  of  a 
possible  alliance  between  the  Nationalists  and  the  Con- 
servatives. They  based  their  appeal  to  the  country 
upon  their  resistance  to  the  Parnellite  claims,  and  upon 
the  sense  of  the  danger  that  would  ensue  if  the  Liberal 
majority  were  insufficient  to  maintain  a  Government 
against  a  combination  of  Conservatives  and  Home 
Rulers.  The  eff"ect  of  this  appeal  was  weakened  partly 
by  the  disasters  in  the  Soudan,  and  partly  by  the  fear  of 
disestablishment.  They  lost  many  seats  in  urban  con- 
stituencies; but  when  the  counties  were  polled,  these 
defeats  were  in  part  counterbalanced  by  the  attractive- 


igS  John  Bright. 

ness  of  the  Liberal  promises  to  the  agricultural  labourer. 
The  majority  of  Liberals  over  Conservatives  was  slightly- 
smaller  than  the  whole  streng-th  of  the  Irish  Nationalists. 
With  such  a  Parliament  no  Government  could  be  stable, 
unless  indeed  it  should  be  founded  on  some  hitherto 
unheard  of  coalition. 

At  first  the  Liberals  scarcely  recog^nized  the  possibility 
that  their  own  leaders  mig^ht  yield  to  the  very  temptation 
to  which  they  had  beg-ged  the  country  not  to  expose 
their  Conservative  rivals ;  and  a  rumour,  circulated  just 
before  the  New  Year,  that  Mr.  Gladstone  meditated  an 
alliance  with  the  Nationalists  was  received  at  first  with 
incredulity  and  afterwards  with  consternation.  His  as- 
surances, however,  were  sufficient  to  secure  the  temporary 
support  of  the  Parnellites,  and  with  their  assistance  the 
Conservative  Government  was  defeated  early  in  the 
session  of  1886.  Mr.  Gladstone  formed  an  administra- 
tion; but  Bright  and  other  leading  Liberals  withheld 
their  support  until  they  should  be  better  informed  of 
the  new  Irish  policy  which  their  leader  had  conceived. 
When  the  new  Government  produced  a  Bill  for  estab- 
lishing a  separate  Legislature  in  Ireland,  and  another 
Bill  under  which  the  State  was  to  purchase  at  a  vast 
outlay  the  estates  of  Irish  landlords,  the  party  was  rent 
by  a  formidable  secession.  It  soon  became  evident  that 
what  was  to  be  feared  was  not  merely  the  temporary 
withdrawal  of  malcontents  into  a  Cave  of  Adullam,  but 
the  formation  of  a  new  party  in  the  State,  started  upon 
its  orbit  with  an  impulse  strong  enough  to  counteract 
the  gravitation  of  the  parent  mass.  There  had  been  for 
some  years  reason  to  prognosticate  a  division  of  the 
Liberal  host,  for  the  political  aims  of  the  new  Radicals 
were  becoming  more  and  more  incompatible  with  those 
of  the  less  enterprising  section.  But  the  most  remark- 
able feature  of  the  Unionist  secession  was  that  the  new 
fissure  was  transverse  to  the  threatened  line  of  cleavage, 


Last  Years. 


199 


the  Radical  wing  of  the  old  party  contributing-  about 
one-half  of  the  Liberal  Unionist  strength.  Bright  used 
his  influence  effectively  to  promote  this  revolt.  He  did 
not  address  the  House  in  debate,  but  when  the  dis- 
satisfied Radicals  met  to  consult  whether  they  should 
abstain  from  voting,  or  by  voting  against  the  Bill  ensure 
the  downfall  of  the  Government,  a  letter  from  Bright 
announcing  his  own  determination  to  vote  was  read, 
and  encouraged  his  friends  to  take  the  bolder  course. 

On  June  8  the  division  on  the  second  reading  of  the 
Home  Rule  Bill  was  taken.  It  was  defeated  by  a 
majority  of  thirty,  ninety-three  Liberals  voting  against 
it.  Mr.  Gladstone  appealed  to  the  country.  Many  of 
the  Liberals  who  had  forsaken  the  Government  lost 
their  seats;  but  the  Conservatives,  supported  by  the 
Liberal  Unionists  in  the  constituencies,  won  many  vic- 
tories, in  spite  of  the  transference  of  the  Irish  vote.  The 
verdict  was  decisive;  and  the  first  Home  Rule  Ministry 
fell  after  a  distracted  existence  of  less  than  six  months. 

Birmingham  returned  six  Liberal  Unionists  and  one 
Conservative  to  the  new  Parliament.  Bright  himself 
was  returned  without  opposition.  He  made  one  speech 
to  his  constituents  justifying  his  desertion  of  the  leader 
whom  he  had  followed  for  so  many  years.  This  was 
the  only  speech  he  made  upon  the  new  issue,  except  one 
delivered  a  year  later  as  chairman  of  a  dinner  at  which 
the  Liberal  Unionist  members  entertained  their  leader, 
Lord  Hartington.  But  in  the  confusion  attending  the 
rupture  of  the  party  many  perplexed  Liberals  wrote  to 
him  for  advice,  and  published  his  letters. 

These  letters,  about  forty  in  number,  written  hastily, 
but  with  great  vigour  and  terseness,  may  be  regarded 
as  his  last  contribution  to  the  guidance  of  his  country- 
men. They  are  distinguished  even  among  Bright's 
utterances  by  the  vehemence  of  their  invective.  He 
stood  at  the  parting  of  the  ways  like  a  Hebrew  prophet 


200  John   Bright. 

testifying-  against  backsliders.  The  controversy  raised 
by  Mr.  Gladstone's  policy  included  a  very  large  number 
of  points  of  dispute.  Bright  however,  whose  habit  was 
always  to  simplify  discussion  by  concentration  upon  a 
few  salient  points,  confined  himself  mainly  to  three 
topics.  *'  I  have  not  been  moved",  he  wrote  to  Bishop 
Magee,  *'by  fears  as  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  Empire, 
or  as  to  the  effect  the  proposed  measure  would  have 
upon  Great  Britain." 

In  the  first  place,  he  reiterated  his  refusal  to  believe 
in  the  sincerity  of  the  Liberals  who  had  followed  Mr. 
Gladstone's  lead  on  the  Irish  question.  He  was  habitu- 
ally severe,  not  to  say  uncharitable,  in  his  moral  judg- 
ments; and  having  once,  with  whatever  justification, 
formed  the  opinion  that  the  newly-converted  Home- 
rulers  had  enslaved  their  conscience  to  that  of  their 
chief,  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  condemn,  with  a 
severity  that  no  other  Unionist  ventured  to  assume, 
their  infidelity  to  the  inward  light.  He  took  up  the 
position  of  a  political  Protestant  asserting  the  right  of 
private  judgment.  ''There  are  men  in  the  House  of 
Commons",  he  said  in  his  speech  at  Birmingham,  "who 
have  no  notion  of  anything  but  following.  They  have 
no  trouble  in  considering  great  questions.  There  is 
their  leader,  and  where  he  leads  they  follow.  They 
remind  me  very  much  of  those  gentlemen  who  go  out 
as  tourists  with  Mr.  Cook.  They  enjoy  great  security, 
because  they  are  personally  conducted."  His  indigna- 
tion did  not  often  permit  him  to  treat  the  subject  in  this 
vein  of  good-humoured  satire.  ''Surely",  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Gladstone,  "when  you  urged  the  constituencies  to 
send  you  a  Liberal  majority  large  enough  to  make  you 
independent  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  party,  the  Liberal 
party  and  the  country  understood  you  to  ask  for  a 
majority  to  enable  you  to  resist  Mr.  Parnell,  not  to 
make   a  complete  surrender  to  him."     "If  Mr.   Glad- 


Last  Years.  201 

stone's  great  authority  were  withdrawn  from  these  Bills, 
I  doubt  if  twenty  members  outside  the  Irish  party  in 
the  House  of  Commons  would  support  them."  "It  is 
notorious  that  scores  of  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons have  voted  with  the  Government  who  in  private 
have  condemned  the  Irish  Bills."  "  I  have  not  been 
able  to  march  with  the  clubs  and  associations  which 
shout  for  measures  which  little  more  than  a  year  ago 
they  would  have  condemned.  We  have  not  yet  had 
an  infallible  leader,  and  till  he  appears  on  the  scene,  I 
must  preserve  my  own  liberty  of  judgment." 

In  the  second  place,  Bright  repeated  again  and  again 
in  the  new  circumstances  the  unfavourable  opinion  that 
he  had  formed  long  ago  of  those  Irish  politicians  to 
whom,  in  his  view,  Mr.  Gladstone  was  making"  a  capitu- 
lation. **  I  am  asked  why  I  cannot  trust  those  leaders. 
I  do  trust  them  most  entirely.  I  have  seen  their  course 
for  seven  years  past,  and  have  heard  and  read  their 
speeches,  and  see  in  them  only  hatred  to  England  and 
disloyalty  to  the  Crown."  ''The  great  Eng-lish  Liberal 
party  is  called  on  to  abandon  its  past  policy  and  pros- 
trate itself  before  an  odious,  illegal,  and  immoral 
conspiracy."  His  patriotic  sentiment  was  grievously 
shocked  by  the  suspicion  that  the  Irish  members  sub- 
sisted on  **  contributions  from  America,  from  men  whose 
avowed  object  is  to  separate  Ireland  from  Great  Britain, 
and  permanently  to  break  up  the  union  of  the  three 
kingdoms".  He  spoke  of  ''the  disloyal  and  rebel 
party",  of  "a  conspiracy  whose  main  object  was  to 
plunder  the  landlords  and  excite  bitter  hatred  of  Eng- 
land ",  and  of  "men  who  had  wholly  ignored  truthful- 
ness and  wisdom  and  justice  for  the  last  seven  years  ". 
The  reasons  which  appear  to  have  led  the  great  English 
democrat  to  adopt  so  detrimental  an  opinion  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Celtic  democracy  in  Ireland  have  already 
been  noticed.     What  was  new  was  his  astonishment  at 


202  John  Bright. 

the  new  sympathies  of  those  who  had  seemed  to  share 
that  opinion  with  him.  ''I  believe",  he  said,  ''that 
history  has  no  example  of  a  monarchy  or  a  republic 
submitting  to  a  capitulation  so  unnecessary  and  so 
humiliating'." 

The  third  topic  on  which  Bright  laid  stress  was  the  in- 
justice which  Home  Rule  would,  in  his  opinion,  inflict  on 
the  Englishry  in  Ireland,  and  especially  in  Ulster.  "You 
are  asked",  he  said  in  his  speech  at  Birmingham,  "to 
thrust  out  from  the  shelter  and  the  justice  of  the  United 
Parliament  the  two  millions  who  would  remain  with  us, 
who  cling  to  us,  who  passionately  resent  the  attempt 
to  drive  them  from  the  protection  of  the  Parliament  of 
their  ancestors."  In  his  letter  to  Magee  he  wrote: 
"  Nothing  seems  to  me  more  shocking  than  the  scheme 
of  handing  over  the  loyal  portion  of  the  five  millions  of 
the  Irish  population,  being  in  number,  I  believe,  at  least 
two  millions,  to  the  government  of  men  who  have  dis- 
turbed and  demoralized  Ireland  during  the  last  seven 
years." 

In  the  early  days  of  the  disruption  many  schemes  of 
compromise  were  suggested.  Bright  made  the  sugges- 
tion that  every  Irish  Bill  should  after  its  first  reading  be 
submitted  to  a  committee  consisting  of  103  Irish  mem- 
bers, who  should  treat  it  as  Bills  are  treated  in  committee 
of  the  whole  House.  The  second  reading  was  to  be 
omitted,  and  the  decisions  of  the  Irish  Committee  were 
to  be  reviewed  by  the  House  only  in  the  stage  of  report. 

In  the  midst  of  the  gloom  that  fell  on  his  spirit  at  the 
snapping  of  old  ties  and  the  failure  of  the  great  engine 
of  progress  from  which  he  had  hoped  so  much.  Bright 
slowly  and  sadly  descended  to  his  grave.  "The  moral 
sense  of  the  Liberal  party ",  he  wrote  in  December, 
1887,  "seems  to  have  become  depraved,  and  all  that 
we  boasted  of  in  its  former  character  has  for  the  time 
forsaken  it.     I  suppose  the  cloud  will  lift  some  day,  but 


Last  Years. 


203 


just  now  we  are  in  great  darkness.  Our  duty  Is  to  go 
on,  honestly  acting  up  to  our  convictions  of  what  is  true. 
I  am  sorry  I  am  not  able  to  do  more,  but  years  creep 
on,  and  their  warning  must  not  be  disregarded." 

In  1886  he  was  admitted  to  an  honorary  degree  by  the 
University  of  Oxford.  His  last  speech  at  Birmingham 
was  delivered  on  March  29,  1888,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
banquet  celebrating  the  return  of  his  colleague,  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  from  a  mission  of  peace  to  America.  He 
spoke  chiefly  of  projects  already  in  the  air  for  Imperial 
Federation.  He  rejected  Federation  as  a  ''dream  and 
an  absurdity  ",  relying  for  the  support  of  this  opinion  on 
"the  question  of  the  tariffs,  which  divide  the  colonies 
among  themselves  and  divide  them  from  us,  and  on  the 
question  of  our  foreign  policy,  which  tends  to  place 
the  colonies  all  over  the  world  in  a  situation  of  peril 
because  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  peace  we  are  able  to 
maintain  ". 

A  few  days  later  a  statue  of  Bright  was  unveiled  at 
Birmingham.  His  effigy  now  stands  in  a  place  of  honour 
in  each  of  the  three  towns  with  which  his  name  is  im- 
perishably  associated — Rochdale,  Manchester,  and  Bir- 
mingham. 

When  he  made  the  speech  just  quoted  the  hand  of 
death  was  already  upon  him.  He  had  been  ill  in  the 
previous  winter,  and  in  May  his  trouble  returned.  He 
rallied  again  in  the  late  summer,  but  in  October  he  took 
to  his  bed,  and  was  never  afterwards  strong  enough  to 
come  downstairs.  In  December  his  death  was  daily 
expected,  but  the  enemy  was  kept  at  bay  for  a  few 
months  longer.  His  daughter  has  recorded  some  simple 
incidents  of  his  last  days.  He  was  weary  and  silent, 
but  patient  and  grateful  to  those  who  tended  him.  He 
called  for  Addison's  versification  of  the  107th  Psalm  to 
be  read  over  to  him  till  he  had  learned  it  by  heart. 
"  His  love  for  animals  was  amply  repaid  by  the  devotion 


204  John  Bright. 

of  his  little  dog*  Fly,  who  was  always  by  his  side,  never 
willing-ly  leaving  the  room  from  the  time  he  was  taken 
ill  in  May  till  the  end  came.  She  was  a  constant  source 
of  pleasure  to  him  during-  those  long-  months,  and  her 
head  received  the  last  caresses  of  the  dying  hand  when 
all  other  power  of  expression  was  gone.  The  end  came 
at  last,  quietly  and  without  suffering,  after  many  hours 
of  unconsciousness,  early  in  the  morning-  of  March  27, 
1889." 

He  was  buried  with  the  studiously  simple  rites  of  his 
community  in  the  g-raveyard  attached  to  the  Friends' 
Meeting-house  at  Rochdale.  Many  men  whose  names 
will  be  forgotten  before  his  have  been  buried  in  the 
enviable  sepulchres  of  our  national  temples.  But  to  all 
who  loved  Bright  it  seemed  most  fitting  that  his  g-rave 
should  be  encircled  by  the  tombstones  of  those  homespun 
worthies  of  his  sect  and  kindred,  from  whose  quiet  lives 
he  had  inherited  the  creed,  made  famous  and  potent  by 
his  genius,  of  peace  and  amity  and  the  equal  dig-nity  of 
manhood. 


Chapter  IX. 
Bright's  Oratory. 

Lord  Salisbury,  speaking  immediately  after  Bright's 
death,  said  of  him:  *' He  was  the  greatest  master  of 
English  oratory  that  this  generation — I  may  say  several 
g-enerations — has  seen.  I  have  met  men  who  have 
heard  Pitt  and  Fox,  and  in  whose  judgment  their 
eloquence  at  its  best  was  inferior  to  the  finest  efforts 
of  John  Bright.  At  a  time  when  much  speaking  has 
depressed,  has  almost  exterminated,  eloquence,  he  main- 
tained that  robust,  powerful,  and  vigorous  style  in  which 
he  gave  fitting  expression  to  the  burning  and  noble 
thoughts  he  desired  to  utter."     This  judgment  might 


Bright's  Oratory.  205 

be  supported  by  the  testimony  of  many  other  competent 
critics;  it  is  indeed  so  generally  accepted  that  it  re- 
quires illustration  rather  than  defence.  Lord  Salisbury's 
epithets  do  not,  however,  do  justice  to  the  most  dis- 
tinctive and  admirable  feature  of  Brigfht's  oratory.  If 
it  was  robust  and  vig"orous,  it  was  also  emotional, 
sympathetic,  sentimental.  It  was  by  virtue  of  a  well- 
tempered  combination  of  what  may  be  called  the  mascu- 
line and  the  feminine  elements  of  rhetorical  persuasion 
that  Brig;ht  claims  the  first  place  among/  the  British 
orators  of  the  century.  It  is  impossible  to  give  an 
adequate  critical  account  of  eloquence  worthy  of  such 
high  commendation.  In  the  best  oratory,  as  in  poetry, 
there  is  a  quality,  the  rarest  of  all,  that  eludes  critical 
analysis  and  can  only  be  referred  vaguely  to  genius.  A 
critic,  applying  one  after  the  other  the  accepted  critical 
tests  of  the  art,  might  defend  the  judgment  that  Macaulay 
was  a  greater  orator  than  Bright.  The  sense  by  which 
we  revolt  against  such  a  judgment  is  the  sense  by  which 
we  perceive  the  last  inimitable  grace  that  lies  beyond 
the  reach  of  study  and  cleverness. 

Although  Bright  owed  his  supremacy  to  an  incom- 
municable gift  of  nature,  it  must  not  be  supposed  either 
that  he  achieved  his  oratorical  triumphs  without  sedulous 
endeavour,  or  that  his  art  reached  the  full  perfection  of 
accomplishment  otherwise  than  by  degrees.  That  his 
speeches  in  the  days  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  were 
full  of  inspiration  and  conviction  is  proved  by  the  rapidity 
with  which  his  fame  spread  through  the  country,  and  by 
the  popular  association  of  his  name  with  that  of  Cobden, 
the  undoubted  protagonist  of  the  great  struggle.  But 
those  who  heard  him  during  this  period  of  his  career 
describe  his  speeches  as  animated,  impetuous,  and  ex- 
hilarating, but  as  consisting  of  mere  passionate  declam- 
ation, disorderly  in  arrangement  and  amorphous  in 
style,  and  anticipating  but  rarely  the  majestic  manner 


2o6  John  Bright. 

of  his  later  orations.     Many  extracts  from  his  speeches 
at  Covent  Garden  and  Free-trade  Hall  may  be  read  in 
Prentice's  History  of  the  League.     It  is  only  here  and 
there  that   the   reader  lights   on   some  phrase  that   in 
humour  or  vividness  or  ingenuity  or  elevation  gives  pro- 
mise of  something  better  than  the  ordinary  fluency  of  a 
demagogue  content  with  emphasizing   commonplaces. 
Perhaps  the  first  speech  in  which  Bright  displayed  his 
full  power  was  a  speech   on   Ireland  delivered  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  April  2,  1849.     This  speech  was 
evidently  carefully  prepared ;  it  was  based  upon  genuine 
study  of  certain  aspects   of  the   Irish   question.      The 
peroration    is    not    merely    powerfully    composed,    but, 
unlike  many  of  Bright's  perorations,  it  really  completes 
and    summarizes    the   argument   of  the   whole    speech. 
The  speech  elicited  a  very  high  encomium  from  Disraeli. 
Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  he  took  great  pains 
in  the  preparation  of  his  speeches.     It  was  not  his  habit 
to  write  them  out.     He  told  a  correspondent  that  his 
written  notes  contained  only  the  heads  of  the  leading 
arguments  and  facts,  and  that  he  *Meft  the  words  to 
come  at  call  while  he  was  speaking  ".     He  added  that 
he  almost  invariably  wrote   out  the  concluding  words 
and  sentences.     The  evidence  of  those  who  were  in  his 
society  before  he  spoke  proves  that  it  was  his  custom 
to  revolve  his  speech  in  his  mind  for  some  days.     He 
must  have  chosen  and  rejected  this  or  that  turn  until 
his  forethought,   perhaps  unconsciously,   had  extended 
to  the  phrasing  as  well  as  the  substance  of  his  sentences. 
If  he  had  to  make  a  speech  in  the  evening,  his  nervous- 
ness and  preoccupation  made  him  almost  unapproachable 
for  the  whole  of  the  day.     When  the  speech  was  oif  his 
mind  he  became  again  genial  and  disposed  for  conversa- 
tion.     He  once   said,  with  humorous   exaggeration  no 
doubt,  '*  I  am  always  ill  for  a  week  before  speaking". 
One  of  his  hosts  at  Birmingham  made  the  curious  ob- 


Bright's  Oratory.  207 

servation  that  he  always  complained  of  the  cold  when 
he  came  down  to  breakfast  on  the  morning  of  a  meeting. 
This  preoccupation  cannot  have  been  caused  merely  or 
chiefly  by  his  sense  of  the  moral  responsibility  laid  upon 
one  who  assumes  the  office  of  advising  his  countrymen 
on  affairs  of  state;  for  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that 
Bright  ever  suffered  misgivings  as  to  the  soundness  of 
the  counsel  that  he  had  to  offer.  It  was  rather  the 
nervousness  of  the  artistic  temperament.  He  had  a 
cultivated  respect  for  his  art,  for  his  audience,  and  for 
his  reputation.  He  was  afraid,  not  that  he  might  not 
say  the  right  thing,  but  that  he  might  not  say  it  well. 
The  notes  that  he  took  with  him  were  merely  a  few 
heads  and  catchwords.  Those  that  he  used  in  his 
speech  of  July  i,  1886,  have  been  preserved.  They 
cover  nine  pages  of  note-paper;  they  are  neatly  written, 
and,  being  without  erasure  or  interlineation,  must  have 
been  copied  from  a  first  rough  draft.  A  familiar  quota- 
tion from  Scripture  is  written  in  full,  as  though  Bright 
distrusted  his  memory. 

Mr.  S.  H.  Butcher,  discussing  the  art  of  the  greatest 
orator  of  antiquity,  finds  none  of  the  moderns  worthy 
to  take  rank  with  Demosthenes,  save  only  Edmund 
Burke.  "John  Bright",  he  says,  ''has  almost  every 
Demosthenic  gift  except  that  of  strong  and  persistent 
reasoning.  He  is  easily  led  away  into  emotional  digres- 
sion ;  some  of  his  noblest  passages  are  loosely  connected 
with  the  subject,  they  are  not  wrought  into  the  texture 
of  the  thought.  The  two  most  perfect  types  in  which 
the  eloquence  of  impassioned  reason  has  hitherto  ex- 
pressed itself  are  found  in  Demosthenes  and  Burke." 

The  comparison  here  suggested  between  Bright  and 
Burke  is  one  from  which  those  may  shrink  who  wish 
to  praise  Bright  without  disparagement.  Burke's  under- 
standing was  far  more  ample  and  profound,  his  know- 
ledge   greater,    his    imagination    more    vigorous;     his 


2o8  John  Bright. 

eloquence  had  a  strong^er  wing*  and  a  loftier  flight;  he 
had  at  call  the  full  opulence  of  the  Engflish  tongue. 
One  might  prefer  to  measure  Bright  against  a  less 
august  figure.  Burke  left  a  message  for  posterity;  it 
may  be  found  that  Bright  served  only  his  own  genera- 
tion. If,  however,  the  comparison  is  to  be  made,  we 
may  claim  some  compensating-  superiority  for  Bright. 
He  possessed,  whether  by  nature  or  art,  a  far  greater 
power  of  adapting  his  eloquence  to  his  audience.  If  the 
end  of  oratory  is  to  convince  the  judgment  and  to  guide 
the  passions  of  those  who  hear,  rather  than  to  accumu- 
late treasures  of  wisdom  for  the  student^  Brig-ht's  elo- 
quence was  far  more  successful.  He  also  possessed  the 
saving  grace  of  humour,  in  which  the  great  Irishman, 
like  the  great  Athenian,  was  almost  painfully  wanting". 
This  is  surely  no  small  matter.  To  men  who  take  so 
gfrave  a  view  of  political  responsibility  as  these  two 
statesmen,  who  strove,  as  they  strove,  to  teach  political 
morality  and  a  political  religion  to  an  untoward  genera- 
tion, the  burden  of  affairs  is  intolerable  if  it  cannot  be 
lightened  by  laughter.  Bright's  humour  was  not  pene- 
trating like  that  of  Carlyle ;  it  only  played  on  the  surface 
of  his  earnestness;  but  it  helped  to  save  him  from  the 
gloom  of  Burke  and  the  Prophets. 

The  oratory  of  Brig^ht  is  distinguished  from  that  of 
f  the  great  orators  of  an  earlier  generation  chiefly  by  the 
quality  of  simplicity  both  of  matter  and  diction.  This 
simplicity  reflects  the  most  striking  quality  of  his  mind. 
He  was  for  the  most  part  content  to  deduce  his  political 
conclusions  from  a  few  very  broad  principles.  He  did 
not  lead  his  hearers  throug^h  any  long  processes  of 
argumentation,  because  his  own  mental  processes  were 
simplified  by  his  indiff'erence  to  so  many  considerations 
that  count  with  more  patient  observers.  He  did  not 
weigh  reason  against  reason  and  strike  the  balance, 
because    the    conclusions    he    propounded    commended 


Bright's  Oratory.  209 

themselves  to  him,  not  as  resulting-  from  a  calculation 
of  comparative  expedienc}^,  but  as  following-  directly 
from  comprehensive  premisses  to  which  his  hearers  were 
assumed  to  have  already  assented.  He  did  not  weary 
them  by  marshalling-  tacts,  because  his  own  methods  of 
thought  were  intuitive  rather  than  inductive.  There  is 
a  sort  of  insincerity  which  is  almost  inseparable  from 
political  rhetoric.  Most  speakers  are  constrained  to 
adapt  their  words  to  their  hearers  by  choosing-  for 
rhetorical  purposes  reasons  more  popular  but  less 
weig-hty  than  those  by  which  they  were  themselves  con- 
vinced. For  simplicity's  sake  they  present  as  absolute 
and  universal  a  conclusion  which  is  really  conditional 
and  dependent  on  circumstances.  Hence  comes,  when 
conditions  chang-e,  the  scandal  of  inconsistency.  Brig-ht 
spoke  as  he  thoug-ht;  he  revealed  his  true  reasons  and 
his  real  motives ;  and  because  his  reasons  were  naive 
and  easy,  the  very  candour  with  which  he  disclosed  them 
led  him  into  a  method  that  might  have  been  commended 
to  him  by  the  tact  of  a  rhetorician  g-auging-  the  recep- 
tive power  of  his  audience.  ""  "* 
A  discussion  was  once  proceeding  in  his  presence  on 
the  difference  between  his  speaking  and  that  of  Mr. 
Gladstone.  At  last  he  struck  in  himself.  "I  think", 
he  said,  ' '  that  the  difference  between  my  speaking  and 
Mr.  Gladstone's  is  something  like  this.  When  I  speak, 
I  strike  across  tiom  headland  to  headland.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone follows  the  coast-line;  and  when  he  comes  to  a 
navigable  river  he  is  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of 
tracing  it  to  its  source."  Those  who  by  more  painful 
processes  had  reached  a  different  conclusion  were  irri- 
tated to  hear  Bright  pass  over  as  mere  irrelevancies 
arguments  that  appeared  to  them  pertinent  and  weighty. 
It  seemed  to  them  that  his  conclusions  were  easy  be- 
cause his  grasp  of  the  science  and  of  the  facts  was 
wilfully  incomplete.     They  had  followed  the  coast-line, 

(M433)  0 


2IO  John  Bright. 

and  had  discovered  on  the  journey  many  things,  ignored 
by  Bright,  to  be  counted  and  measured.  Philosophers 
may  prefer  the  completer  survey,  but  to  a  mass  meeting 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  shorter  voyage  from  cape 
to  cape  is  more  agreeable;  and  even  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  not  yet  an  assemblage  of  philosophers. 
/  The  simplicity  of  his  diction  corresponds  to  that  of 
^^  his  thought,  j  His  vocabulary  was  stinted  by  comparison, 
not  indeed  with  that  of  the  common  run  of  speakers, 
but  with  that  of  most  of  the  great  masters  of  his  art. 
The  comparative  scantiness  of  Bright's  copia  verborum 
may  be  attributed  in  part  to  his  neglect  of  subtleties  of 
thought  and  the  finer  distinctions  that  require  the  rarer 
sort  of  words;  in  part  to  the  instinct  of  the  popular 
orator  discarding  words  unfamiliar  to  his  audience;  in 
part  to  the  frankness  that  avoids  the  trick  of  making 
common  ideas  seem  impressive  by  pretentious  phrasing. 
No  speaker  made  less  use  of  what  Bentley  called  *'  com- 
mon and  obvious  thoughts  dressed  and  curled  in  the 
beauish  way"- 

Much  has  been  said  about  Bright's  ''homespun  phrase", 
"vigorous  Saxon",  and  the  like.  It  is  true  that  he  did 
not  elevate  his  ordinary  style  so  far  above  the  level  of 
conversation  as  the  classical  orators  of  former  genera- 
tions. But  there  is  always  some  elevation ;  he  did  not 
commit  the  disrespect  of  talking  to  people  who  had 
come  to  hear  him  speak.  If  his  speeches  are  fairly 
examined,  no  justification  whatsoever  will  be  found  for 
the  suggestion  that  his  rejection  of  words  employed  by 
Burke  or  Fox  or  Mr.  Gladstone  was  due  to  any  pre- 
ference for  the  Saxon  to  the  classical  element  of  the 
language.  He  would  often  use  a  Latin  word  even  though 
an  English  equivalent  was  at  hand,  for  the  sake  of  sound 
or  of  rhythm,  or  from  mere  indifference  of  choice.  Such 
words  as  potent^  dominant,  turbulent,  enormous,  multi- 
tudinous, disastrous,  comme7isurate,  interminable,  incal- 


Bright's  Oratory.  211 

culable,  are  quite  characteristic  of  his  style.  He  would 
say  constantly,  inculcate,  trepidation,  profligate,  decorous, 
penurious,  eradicate,  assembly,  when  he  might,  except 
for  sound  or  dignity,  have  said,  always,  teach,  fear, 
wicked,  seemly,  stingy,  uproot,  meeting. 

If  his  vocabulary  was  limited,  his  choice  of  words 
within  those  limits  was  singularly  just  and  delicate.  In 
his  popular  addresses, — the  conditions  of  which  admitted  - 
a  more  accurate  preparation  than  his  speeches  in  Parlia- 
ment, where  any  speaker  is  partly  at  the  mercy  of  the 
course  of  debate, — there  are  few  sentences  in  which  the 
boldest  critic  would  venture  to  suggest  the  replacement 
of  a  single  word.  He  had  a  most  delicate  sense  of 
rhythm.  In  this  respect  not  one  of  our  most  admired 
orators  has  excelled  him.  To  one  who  has  caught  the 
suavity  of  Bright's  cadences  the  accent  of  Macaulay 
sounds  like  the  stroke  of  a  blacksmith's  hammer,  the 
sentences  of  Burke  strike  the  ear  like  the  tramp  of  a 
regiment,  and  the  periods  of  Fox  or  Mr.  Gladstone  like 
the  tumult  of  a  hurrying  crowd.  To  make  rules  for 
rhythmical  prose  is  the  despair  of  criticism.  Probably 
there  is  no  rule  that  will  work  except  that  which  pro- 
hibits rhythms  that  suggest  any  familiar  form  of  verse. 
But  if  the  reader  will  refer  to  the  peroration  quoted 
on  p.  66,  and  will  substitute  the  word  Ministry  for 
Administration,  and  read  the  last  phrase  thus:  *'the 
squandering  of  the  treasure  of  my  country  or  the  shed- 
ding of  a  single  drop  of  her  blood";  or  if  in  the  famous 
passage  on  the  future  of  America,  quoted  on  p.  107,  he 
will  try  the  effect  of  any  of  the  following  substitutions : 
confederacy,  ocea^i,  liberty,  asylutn,  nation,  climate,  for 
confederation,  main,  freedo?n,  refuge,  race,  clime ;  he  will 
realize  how  much  of  the  beauty  of  these  fine  passages  is 
due  to  the  artful  disposition  of  the  accents  and  of  the 
long  vowel  sounds. 

Another    phase   of    Bright's    characteristic    simplicity  \ 


212  John  Bright. 

remains  to  be  noticed  more  particularly.  He  differed 
from  those  orators  who  have  hitherto  taken  classical 
rank  in  nothing-  more  strikingly  than  in  this — that  he 
was  content  with  a  plain  and  unadorned  phrase  for  the 
statement  of  a  simple  fact.  He  did  not  think  it  due  to 
himself  or  to  his  art  to  trick  out  a  plain  narrative  with 
oriental  embellishments.  He  g"ained  far  more  than  he 
lost  by  this  Wordsworthian  reversion  to  natural  sim- 
plicity. It  is  usual  to  ascribe  Burke's  failure  to  keep 
the  ear  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  some  defect  of  that 
body — its  stupidity  or  its  prejudice.  But  many  admirers 
of  Burke  will  admit,  if  they  are  pressed,  that  it  is  not  easy 
to  read  one  of  his  speeches  through  at  a  sitting-.  We 
read  a  few  pages  with  immense  admiration;  but  soon 
the  ear  and  the  mind  are  surfeited  of  his  grand  manner, 
and  we  can  understand  how  those  magnificent  sentences 
failed  of  their  due  effect  because  they  fell  on  ears  wearied 
by  the  strain  of  so  much  highly -coloured  eloquence. 
Bright  is  always  interesting  and  never  wearisome.  Some 
of  the  finest  effects  of  his  eloquence  were  produced  by 
the  sudden  transition  from  some  simple  statement  or 
some  plain  argument  presented  in  plain  terms  to  a 
stroke  of  passion  or  imagination. .  There  is  ample  con- 
temporary testimony  of  the  extraordinary  effect  produced 
by  his  reference  to  the  death  of  Colonel  Boyle.  He  is 
speaking  of  the  loss  of  life  in  the  Crimean  war.  "  We 
all  know  what  we  have  lost  in  this  House.  Here,  sitting 
near  me,  very  often  sat  the  member  for  Frome.  I  met 
him  a  short  time  before  he  went  out,  at  Mr.  Westerton's, 
the  bookseller's,  near  Hyde  Park  Corner.  I  asked  him 
whether  he  was  going  out.  He  answered,  he  was  afraid 
he  was — not  afraid  in  the  sense  of  personal  fear;  he 
knew  not  that — but  he  said,  with  a  look  and  a  tone  I 
shall  never  forget,  *  It  is  no  light  matter  for  a  man  who 
has  a  wife  and  five  little  children'.  The  stormy  Euxine 
is  his  grave;  his  wife  is  a  widow,  his  children  fatherless." 


Bright's  Oratory.  213 

The  subdued  tone  of  the  introductory  narrative,  and  the 
odd  triviality,  as  of  a  conscientious  vv^itness,  in  the  details 
of  the  place  where  the  speaker  met  Boyle,  add  vastly  to 
the  irresistible  force  of  the  stroke  of  pathos.  When  the 
effective  sentence  comes,  it  needs  only  the  slightest 
touches  of  art — the  substitution  of  Euxine  for  the  com- 
moner Black  Sea,  and  the  addition  of  a  single  ornamental 
epithet — to  give  it  elevation.  The  eloquence  comes 
like  a  flash  of  lightning,  and  fixes  itself  for  ever  in  the 
memory;  but  it  has  obeyed  the  primary  rule  of  pathetic 
utterance,  that  it  should  be  unlaboured  and  simple. 
Such  an  effect  is  beyond  the  reach  of  the  gorgeous  style. 
This  little  touch  of  pity  probably  moved  men  nearer  to 
tears  than  all  the  woes  of  Sheridan's  Begums. 

The  foregoing  remarks  may  be  illustrated  and  other 
criticisms  suggested  by  the  following  specimen  of  Bright's 
ordinary  parliamentary  style.  The  passage  is  chosen, 
not  as  having  any  special  excellence,  but  because  it 
treats  of  topics  by  which  the  great  Whig  orators  of  the 
last  century  frequently  displayed  their  method  of  arous- 
ing compassion  and  indignation. 

"I  beg  the  Committee  to  consider  this  matter,  not- 
withstanding that  the  right  hon.  gentleman  is  not 
disposed  to  take  a  gloomy  view  of  the  state  of  India. 
Look  at  your  responsibilities.  India  is  ruled  by  English- 
men; but  remember  that  in  that  unfortunate  country 
you  have  destroyed  every  form  of  government  but  your 
own,  that  you  have  cast  the  thrones  of  the  natives  to 
the  ground.  Princely  families,  once  the  rulers  of  India, 
are  now  either  houseless  wanderers  in  the  land  they  once 
called  their  own,  or  are  pensioners  on  the  bounty  of  the 
strangers  by  whom  their  fortunes  have  been  overthrown. 
They  who  were  noble  and  gentle  for  ages  are  now  merged 
in  the  common  mass  of  the  people.  All  over  these  vast 
regions  there  are  countless  millions,  helpless  and  defence- 
less, deprived  of  their  natural  leaders  and  their  ancient 


214  John  Bright. 

chiefs,  looking-  with  only  some  small  ray  of  hope  to  the 
omnipresent  and  irresistible  power  to  which  they  have 
been  subjected.  I  appeal  to  you  on  behalf  of  that  people. 
I  have  besoug-ht  your  mercy  and  your  justice  for  many 
a  year  past,  and  if  I  speak  to  you  earnestly  now,  it  is 
because  the  object  for  which  I  plead  is  dear  to  my  heart. 
Is  it  not  possible  to  touch  a  chord  in  the  hearts  of  Eng^- 
lishmen,  to  raise  them  to  a  sense  of  the  miseries  inflicted 
on  that  unhappy  country  by  the  crimes  and  the  blunders  of 
our  rulers  here?  If  you  have  steeled  your  hearts  agfainst 
the  natives,  if  nothing*  can  stir  you  to  sympathy  with 
their  miseries,  at  least  have  pity  upon  your  own  fellow- 
countrymen.  Rely  upon  it,  the  state  of  thing's  which  now 
exists  in  India  must  before  long-  become  more  serious. 
I  hope  you  will  not  show  to  the  world  that,  although 
your  fathers  conquered  that  country,  you  have  not  the 
ability  to  gfovern  it.  You  had  better  disencumber  your- 
selves of  the  fatal  g"ift  of  empire  than  that  the  present 
g-eneration  should  be  punished  for  the  sins  of  the  past. 
I  speak  in  condemnatory  language  because  I  believe  it 
to  be  deserved.  I  hope  that  no  future  historian  will  have 
to  say  that  the  arms  of  England  in  India  were  irresistible 
and  that  an  ancient  empire  fell  before  their  victorious 
progress,  yet  that  finally  India  was  avenged  because  the 
power  of  her  conqueror  was  broken  by  the  intolerable 
burdens  and  evils  which  she  cast  upon  her  victim,  and 
that  this  wrong  was  accomplished  by  a  waste  of  human 
life  and  a  waste  of  wealth  which  England  with  all  her 
power  was  unable  to  bear." 

Certainly  Bright  is  not  at  his  best  here.  Some  of  the 
language  is  not  only  plain  but  almost  too  common.  A 
more  fastidious  speaker  might  have  tried  to  avoid  such 
worn-out  locutions  as  ray  of  hope,  steel  your  hearts, 
touch  a  chord.  In  one  sentence  the  style  seems  to  sink 
suddenly;  probably  in  speaking  some  art  of  delivery 
rescued   it  from  the  sense  of  bathos.      The  word  con- 


Bright's  Oratory.  215 

demnatory  sounds  oddly,  though  it  has  g^ood  authority. 
Bright  seems  to  have  substituted  '•'condemnatory 
language"  for  the  usual  ''language  of  condemnation" 
because  he  had  just  used  the  word  generation.  His 
ear  was  very  sensitive  to  this  jingle,  which  most 
speakers  find  it  impossible  to  avoid.  He  could  never 
have  spoken,  as  Disraeli  did  in  the  eulogy  already  re- 
ferred to,  of  "a  speech  to  which  I  listened  with  pleasure 
and  gratification,  as  I  must  to  every  demonstration  that 
sustains  the  reputation  of  this  assembly  ". 

These  things  are  mere  trifles,  and  are  only  worth 
noting  for  the  sake  of  the  remark  that  Bright  would 
have  been  more  careful  of  his  language  if  he  had  been 
speaking  in  the  Birmingham  Town  Hall.  What  is 
really  noteworthy  in  the  style  of  the  passage  is  this — 
-A-u(-  that  just  because  the  ground  tone  is  pitched  rather  low, 
the  vivid  and  touching  phrases  require  no  elaborate 
-workmanship  to  make  them  eff'ective.  Burke  would 
have  laboured  the  picture  of  the  dispossessed  potentates 
until  he  had  forced  us  to  resist  his  pathos  by  reminding 
ourselves  that  they  were  after  all  rather  worthless 
persons  paying  the  penalty  of  selfishness  and  incompet- 
ence. He  might  have  introduced  some  of  the  oriental 
scenery  of  the  tragedy;  we  should  have  heard  of  Rannies 
and  Zamindars,  of  diamonds  and  palanquins.  Bright's 
appeal  to  the  sentiment  of  compassion  for  fallen  great- 
ness, and  to  our  sense  of  the  perplexity  that  follows  the 
uprooting  of  institutions,  is  sufficient,  and  it  does  not 
overshoot  the  mark.  The  whole  passage  satisfies  the 
three  proverbial  aims  of  rhetoric — ut  doceat,  tnoveqt, 
delectet.  It  is  good  oratory,  because  the  sound  is"^ 
grateful  to  the  ear,  because  it  stimulates  the  imagina- 
tion, and  because  it  touches  the  sensibility.  The  mind 
is  powerfully  impressed  with  the  sense  that  it  is  easier 
to  conquer  than  to  govern,  to  destroy  than  to  recon- 
struct.    The  hearer  may  have  learned  nothing  new  of 


I 


2i6  John  Bright. 

the  resources  of  the  languag^e  or  of  the  power  of  the 
orator,  but  he  is  left  with  a  quickened  perception  of  the 
gravity  of  imperial  responsibility.  That  is  the  effect 
intended;  and  it  could  not  have  been  achieved  more 
skilfully  by  the  use  of  more  recondite  diction  or  more 
sonorous  periods. 

Mr.  Thorold  Rogers,  in  his  preface  to  a  selection  of 
Bright's  speeches, — excellently  chosen,  but  edited  with 
reprehensible  carelessness, — commends  '*the  clearness 
of  his  diction,  the  skill  with  which  he  arranges  his 
arguments,  the  vigour  of  his  style,  the  persuasiveness 
of  his  reasoning,  and  above  all  the  perfect  candour  and 
sincerity  with  which  he  expresses  his  political  convic- 
tions ".  Certainly  Bright  was  lucid,  persuasive,  and 
eminently  candid.  If  there  is  one  of  these  heads  of 
commendation  to  which  exception  may  be  taken,  it  is 
that  which  touches  the  arrangement  of  his  arguments. 
f  Bright  does  not  seem  to  have  paid  any  attention  to  the 
architectonics  of  oratory.  In  reading  his  speeches  we 
are  rarely  conscious  of  that  effect  of  the  gradual 
accumulation  of  the  force  of  reasoning  which  has  often 
.  been  attained  by  the  skill  of  inferior  orators.  It  must 
\  be  recorded,  not  as  a  fault,  but  as  a  fact,  that  some  of 
his  finest  speeches  have  really  no  _slmcture  at  all.  No 
critic  of  to-day  will  wish  to  revive  the  importance  which 
ancient  writers  on  rhetoric  attached  to  this  part  of  the 
art.  To  an  audience  coming  to  the  hall  of  meeting  or 
to  the  House  of  Commons  with  their  minds  already 
occupied  by  the  burning  question  of  the  hour  the  order 
in  which  topics  are  taken  may  be  immaterial.  Each 
sentence  will  carry  its  full  weight  of  meaning  to  the 
mind  without  the  aid  of  anv  artifice  of  arranofement. 
The  reader,  who  is  not  prepared,  as  the  hearers  were 
prepared,  for  the  reception  of  the  speech,  will  some- 
times feel  that  the  orator  might  have  helped  him  by  a 
more    orderly    disposition    of  the    argument.      In    par- 


Bright's  Oratory.  217 

ticular,  the  transition  to  the  main  course  of  the  argu- 
ment after  a  digression,  perhaps  unrehearsed,  will 
sometimes  appear  to  be  awkwardly  managed. 

Bright  rarely  made  any  show  of  being  severely  log- 
ical. But  the  affectation  of  logical  precision  in  a  popular 
or  even  a  parliamentary  orator  is  rarely  more  than  a 
delusive  pretence.  It  must  be  added  that,  like  other 
orators,  he  was  not  altogether  exempt  from  logical 
fallacies.  If  the  arguments  implied  in  the  extracts 
quoted  on  p.  100  and  p.  91  of  this  book  be  treated  in 
the  Socratic  manner,  the  former  will  be  found  to  owe 
its  plausibility  to  the  ambiguity  of  the  term  property^ 
and  the  latter  to  the  ambiguity  of  the  term  conscience. 
Such  things  do  not  make  much  difference.  The  part  of 
a  popular  orator  is  to  make  people  see  things  imme- 
diatdy  by^ommon  sense ;  if  he  cannot  do  this,  he  will 
not  make  much  way  by  a  train  of  reasoning. 

The  opinion  has  already  been  expressed  that  Bright's 
reputation  would  be  secure  and  lasting  if  it  depended 
entirely  on  the  speeches  on  the  Russian  war.  Future 
compilers  of  a  florilegium  of  British  oratory  will  pro- 
bably resort  to  these  speeches  for  their  specimens  of  his 
eloquence.  The  strength  of  resistance  against  him 
brought  out  the  full  force  of  his  powers.  He  had  to 
contend  against  the  belief  in  the  minds  of  nearly  all  his 
hearers  that  his  opinions  were  not  only  unwise  and 
quixotic  but  informed  by  a  defective  sense  of  national 
honour.  Nothing  short  of  the  very  finest  tact  could 
have  saved  him  from  ridicule.  The  admiration  which 
these  speeches  won  at  the  time  was  the  more  valuable 
because  it  was  given  grudgingly  and  of  necessity. 

Although  he  won  so  many  triumphs  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  it  was  as  a  popular  rather  than  as  a  parlia- 
mentary orator  that  Bright  attained  the  very  first  place 
among  his  contemporaries.  By  comparison  with  other 
speakers  of  the   first   flight,   he  was   in   a   manner  dis- 


2i8  John  Bright. 

qualified  for  the  highest  success  in  debate  by  certain 
quahties  of  his  mental  habit.  A  great  debater  is  a  man 
who  is  not  afraid  to  allow  his  opponents  the  advantage 
of  choosing  the  field  of  combat.  He  will  either  essay- 
to  prove  that  the  premisses  of  his  antagonists  are  mis- 
taken, or  that  their  conclusions  do  not  follow  their 
premisses.  Bright's  method  was  to  go  on  reasoning 
from  premisses  of  his  own  choosing.  His  opponents 
did  not  think  that  he  came  fairly  to  close  quarters  with 
them.  In  his  numerous  republished  speeches  on  parlia- 
mentary reform  the  reader  will  find  the  reasons  for 
Vreform  enforced  with  the  highest  rhetorical  skill.  The 
appeal  to  emotion  is  irresistible;  the  indignation  is  in- 
fectious and  virile,  it  is  free  from  feminine  shrillness  of 
(jomplaint ;  the  hot  air  of  controversy  is  cooled  just  at 
the  right  moment  by  a  whiff  of  humour  or  ridicule. 
What  the  reader  will  not  find  there  is  any  adequate 
Ireply  to  the  reasons  against  democratic  reform  urged 
^by  Lowe  and  others.  Again,  in  the  controversy  of  1886 
Bright,  as  we  have  seen,  seized  on  three  reasons  of 
weight  against  Home  Rule.  No  other  man  then  living 
could  enforce  those  topics  with  more  authority;  and 
when  the  controversy  has  reached  its  final  issue  and  its 
history  is  written,  the  narrator  will  not  fail  to  allot  to 
Bright  a  large  share  of  praise  or  blame  for  the  defeat 
in  1886  of  the  new  policy.  But  it  must  be  conceded 
that  in  his  speeches  and  letters  he  ignored  the  reasons 
which  the  majority  of  his  party  accepted  as  sufficient  to 
justify  their  change  of  purpose.  To  recur  to  his  own 
metaphor,  he  left  to  others  the  task  of  following  Mr. 
Gladstone  up  the  navigable  rivers. 
P  Bright,  therefore,  does  not  take  quite  the  highest 
;  place  among  the  athletes  of  debate.  But  all  his  mental 
powers  combined  to  equip  him  for  the  work  of  a  popular 
orator.  Those  who  assemble  at  public  meetings  love 
the  note  of  certainty;  and  Bright  was  always  confident, 


Bright's  Oratory.  219 

unhesitating-,  resolute.  They  are  disposed  to  accept  on 
authority  an  opinion  laid  before  them  distinctly  by  a 
man  of  whose  sincerity  they  are  already  convinced ;  and 
Bright's  sincerity  was  guaranteed  by  every  possible  test^ 
Theyare  eager'for  generalities,  and  the  form  of  reason- 
ing that  affects  them  most  favourably  is  that  which 
refers  the  special  case  to  some  general  maxim.  The 
Radicals  wisely  supplied  them  with  a  little  treasury  of 
such  maxims — a  bunch  of  keys  to  fit  many  locks.  Of 
such  maxims  those  which  are,  or  which  affect  to  be, 
rules  of  morality  rather  than  of  prudence  are  the  most 
valuable  to  an  orator;  for  ethical  maxims  are  accepted  :::i^. 
as  absolute,  while  it  is  known  that  there  are  two  sides 
to  a. question  of  expediency.  In  taking  his  stand  on 
morality.  Bright  was  simply  obeying  his  own  conscience; 
but  he  was  also  occupying  the  position  most  advan- 
tageous for  the  control  of  public  opinion.  The  popular 
orator  will  do  well  to  say,  if  he  can.  It  is  wicked  not  to 
do  this,  rather  than,  It  is  expedient  to  do  it.  He  will 
refer  the  errors  imputed  to  his  opponents  to  their  moral 
delinquency  rather  than  to  mere  infirmity  of  judgment ; 
and  this  he  may  safely  do,  provided  that  he  has  first 
satisfied  his  audience  that  he  is  himself  in  earnest.  The 
appeal  to  reason  is  ineffective  unless  it  is  followed  by  an 
appeal  to  emotion;  and  of  the  emotions  indignation  is 
that  which  is  most  readily  excited.  A  public  meeting 
never  enjoys  itself  more  thoroughly  than  when  it  is 
crying  Shame ! 

It  is  unnecessary  to  add  to  the  examples  already 
given  that  show  how  exactly  Bright's  manner  fulfilled 
all  these  conditions  of  success.  The  reader  of  his 
speeches,  if  he  is  a  man  anxious  to  think  as  well  as 
possible  of  everyone,  may  have  a  feeling  of  revolt  when 
one  group  of  ministers,  some  of  whom  have  now  been 
honoured  by  statues  and  Lives  in  two  volumes,  is  de- 
scribed as  '*  incompetent  and  guilty",  another  as  *'tur- 


220  John  Bright. 

bulent  and  wicked",  or  when  a  statesman  of  good  repute 
is  accused  of  "  haughty  unwisdom  ".  But  the  populace 
rejoices  to  be  told  that  it  does  well  to  be  angry.  No- 
thing, it  may  be  said,  is  easier  than  scolding.  Every 
man  has  at  hand  a  suflficient  supply  of  offensive  epithets. 
But  Bright  did  not  scold;  he  had  the  art  of  speaking  as 
one  having  authority  to  condemn,  and  he  said  these 
things  in  such  a  way  that  they  sounded  like  the  judg- 
ments of  Rhadamanthus. 

This  prophetic  sternness  of  denunciation  was  relieved 
by  the  faculties  of  humour  and  wit.  Without  the  gift 
of  humour  no  speaker  could  have  sustained  so  constant 
a  habit  of  earnestness,  or  have  made  so  many  bold 
incursions  into  the  region  of  pathos,  without  sometimes 
incurring  ridicule.  Bright  was  grave  and  sentimental, 
yet  his  audience  never  laughed  at  him.  His  mental 
refinement  saved  him  from  the  easy  flippancy  that 
besets  many  popular  speakers.  His  wit  was  displayed 
in  the  invention  of  those  happy  and  effective  com- 
parisons, of  which  the  best-remembered  is  the  pro- 
verbial Cave  of  Adullam.  In  one  of  the  earliest  of  these 
sallies  he  likened  Russell's  Government,  whose  financial 
measures  seemed  to  him  exactly  adapted  to  make  them 
unpopular  with  the  electorate,  to  ''the  religious  order 
of  La  Trappe,  who  are  said  to  have  employed  them- 
selves diligently  in  digging  their  own  graves".  The 
last,  contained  in  the  same  speech  with  the  parable 
of  the  Cook's  tourists,  was  his  description  of  the  result 
of  a  proposal  that  the  Irish  members  should  speak  and 
vote  on  Irish  questions  only  as  ''a  sort  of  intermittent 
Irish  fever  in  the  House  of  Commons".  He  compared 
Disraeli  to  Voltaire,  ''who  wrote  history  far  better  with- 
out facts  than  with  them ".  He  revenged  himself  on 
the  eminent  writer  who  had  attacked  him  and  Cobden 
under  the  protection  of  anonymous  journalism  by  com- 
paring him  to  the  i\merican  of  whom  it  was  said  that 


Bright's  Oratory.  221 

'*he  was  a  just  and  rigfhteous  man,  and  he  walked  up- 
rightly before  the  world;  but  when  he  was  not  before 
the  world  his  walk  was  slantindicular".  The  reluctance 
of  the  Conservatives  to  mend  grievances  reminded  him 
of  a  Lancashire  miser,  who  would  not  have  his  clothes 
repaired  ''because  he  found  that  a  hole  lasted  longer 
than  a  patch".  He  suggested  as  a  motto  for  the  Whigs, 
''A  place  for  every  one,  and  every  one  in  his  place". 
When  a  high-church  baronet,  who  sat  for  Oxford  Uni- 
versity, opposed  the  admission  of  a  Jew  into  the  House 
of  Commons,  Bright  gave  an  unexpectedly  humorous 
turn  to  a  really  pertinent  argument.  "Take,  for  in- 
stance, what  may  be  called  the  morality  of  politics. 
You  will  find  that  the  hon.  baronet  draws  nearly  all  his 
opinions  from  the  very  same  source  as  Baron  Rothschild. 
We  have  discussed  in  this  House  the  question  of  capital 
punishment.  I  find  the  hon.  baronet  quoting  against 
me,  with  his  accustomed  bland  dignity,  the  ninth  chapter 
of  the  book  of  Genesis.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that 
he  takes  his  notions  of  the  priesthood  from  the  times  of 
the  book  of  Exodus.  When  the  question  of  marriage 
with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  was  under  discussion  the 
hon.  baronet  referred  the  House  with  perfect  confidence 
to  the  book  of  Leviticus." 

Bright  had  a  strong  and  beautiful  voice,  clear  rather 
than  loud,  rich  and  sympathetic  in  tone,  and  so  admir- 
ably controlled  that  he  could  produce  a  fine  eff"ect  by  a 
very  slight  increase  in  the  volume  of  sound  or  force  of 
utterance  in  passages  of  denunciation,  or  by  a  very 
slight  fall  of  pitch  for  humour  or  irony.  In  his  old  age 
some  weakness  of  the  throat  often  made  his  voice  husky; 
but  when  it  was  at  its  best  he  could  make  himself  heard 
without  painful  eff"ort  by  an  audience  of  twenty  thousand 
people.  He  relied  for  colour  and  emphasis  almost 
entirely  on  choice  of  words  and  modulation  of  voice, 
making  little  use  of  gesture  and  action.      He  would  call 


222  John  Bright. 

attention  to  a  strong"  point  by  leaning*  forward  and  rais- 
ing his  right  arm.  He  had  also  a  trick  of  putting  his 
finger  between  collar  and  neck  under  the  ear  and  moving 
it  round  to  the  chin  when  he  was  about  to  say  something 
playful.  The  flashing  eye  and  curling  lip  sometimes 
attributed  to  him  when  scornful  are  figments  of  imagina- 
tive reporters;  and  indeed  such  grimaces  belong-  rather 
to  the  mock  oratory  of  the  stage.  His  bodily  attitude 
in  speaking  was  dignified;  and  his  manner  was  as  far 
removed  as  possible  from  the  shouting  and  gesticulating" 
style  of  the  ideal  demagogue  of  fiction  and  the  satirists 
— a  style  which,  it  must  be  added,  is  the  least  likely  to 
make  a  favourable  impression  upon  such  audiences  as 
Bright  was  accustomed  to  address. 

His  quotations,  which  were  generally  felicitous,  were 
taken  chiefly  from  the  Bible  and  from  the  English  and 
American  poets.  Some  of  them  were  used  repeatedly. 
His  occasional  use  of  the  words  of  Scripture  with  a 
humorous  intention  may  be  traced  to  his  fondness  for 
American  literature,  which  is  itself  to  be  associated  with 
his  admiration  for  American  institutions.  No  political 
orator  has  ever  used  citations  from  the  Scriptures  with 
more  fortunate  results.  They  harmonized  admirably 
with  that  "undercurrent  of  religious  emotion"  by  which 
his  speeches  were  distinguished.  No  literary  quotations 
can  be  so  eff'ective  in  addresses  to  a  popular  audience 
as  those  taken  from  the  Bible.  The  essential  value  of  a 
quotation  is  that  to  those  versed  in  literature  it  suggests 
by  association  ideas  not  directly  expressed.  To  the 
majority  of  any  popular  audience  a  passage  from  Milton 
or  Pope  means  what  it  says  and  nothing  more.  But 
when  Bright,  for  instance,  quotes  from  the  Psalms, 
**The  needy  shall  not  alway  be  forgotten:  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  poor  shall  not  perish  for  ever",  he  achieves  an 
eff"ect  not  otherwise  to  be  attained.  The  thoughts  of 
the  most  ignorant  are  carried  back  to  antiquity,  and  the 


Bright's  Oratory.  223 

needs  and  hopes  of  the  moment  are  linked  with  the  im- 
memorial needs  and  undying*  hopes  of  humanity.  So 
again,  when  he  replied  in  debate,  to  an  orator  who  had 
spoken  sadly  of  ''the  dark  cloud  that  hangs  over  Ire- 
land" by  citing  the  words,  *' Unto  the  upright  there 
ariseth  light  in  the  darkness ",  he  gave  dignity  to  his 
appeal  by  claiming,  as  it  were,  the  alliance  of  the  eternal 
forces  of  justice,  and  seemed  to  invest  the  trite  exhorta- 
tion to  do  justly  and  hope  for  the  best  with  the  lustre  of 
a  universal  faith. 

He,  therefore,  not  only  owed  to  his  study  of  the  Bible 
the  elevated  and  half-religious  tone  of  thought  that  per- 
meated his  utterances,  but  used  it  directly  in  some  of 
the  most  impressive  strokes  of  his  eloquence.  Many 
critics  have  suggested  that  his  style  also  was  indebted 
for  some  of  its  fine  qualities  to  his  familiarity  with  the 
English  of  the  Bible.  The  present  writer,  having  given 
a  different  account  of  Bright's  simplicity  of  style,  and 
having  discarded  the  suggestion  that  Bright  shared  that 
preference  for  Saxon  words  which  is  one  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  Tyndale's  version  that  in  part  survived  the 
pedantry  of  King  James's  revisers,  finds  himself,  after 
due  consideration,  unable  to  concur  in  this  view.  Pro- 
bably no  man's  style  ever  owed  less  to  conscious  or 
unconscious  imitation.  The  books  with  which,  after 
the  Bible,  Bright  was  most  familiar  were  Byron  and 
Milton.  Milton,  it  is  said,  has  contributed  more  to  the 
equipment  of  English  orators  than  to  that  of  English 
poets;  but  Bright  does  not  seem  to  have  been  under  any 
special  obligation  to  him  for  words  and  phrases.  Nor 
is  there  any  evidence  in  his  speeches  that  he  had  paid 
any  great  attention  to  the  earlier  English  orators. 

Though  plain,  direct,  and  economical  of  embellish- 
ment, his  style  is  never  without  distinction.  Even  at  its 
plainest  it  is  rarely  bald.  It  will  not  perhaps  be  thought 
fanciful  to  compare  the  difference  between  the  manner  of 


224  John  Bright. 

Brig^ht  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  orators  like  Burke 
and  Fox,  Pitt  and  Canning-,  on  the  other,  to  the  differ- 
ence between  Demosthenes  and  Cicero.  The  influence 
of  the  Roman  in  forming-  what  may  be  called  the  classical 
manner  of  English  oratory  is  not  to  be  g-ainsaid.  Bright 
renounced  many  of  the  qualities  of  that  manner — its 
studied  sonority,  its  balance  of  clauses  and  epithets,  its 
antithetic  emphasis,  its  well-knit  structure  of  sentences. 
Without  considering-  whether  it  is  long-er  or  shorter 
than  the  sentence  that  preceded  it,  and  with  no  care  to 
g-ive  it  equipoise  upon  its  own  centre  of  gravity,  he 
brings  a  sentence  to  a  conclusion  because  he  has  said 
what  he  meant  to  say  in  it,  or  carries  it  on  with  a  new 
subordinate  construction  because  he  has  something-  to 
add.  This  ag-ain  was  a  reversion  to  nature  in  defiance  of 
the  traditions  of  his  art.  His  manner,  if  we  may  coin 
a  word  in  imitation  of  preraphaelite,  was  preciceronian. 
Unconsciously,  it  was  also  a  reversion  to  the  manner  of 
Demosthenes. 

A  word  must  be  added  on  what  may  be  called  the 
educational  value  of  these  speeches.  Mr.  Challemel- 
Lacour,  speaking-  in  particular  of  the  speeches  on  Re- 
form, declares  that,  in  spite  of  the  ag-gressive  tone  of 
some  of  the  speeches,  and  though  he  recognizes  here 
and  there  the  impassioned  accent  of  the  Tribune,  the 
quality  that  strikes  him  most  forcibly  is  their  modera- 
tion. "When  I  read  those  orations  delivered  at  the 
great  popular  meetings  at  Birmingham,  Manchester, 
Glasgow,  and  London,  before  easily  inflammable  mobs, 
whose  applause  is  so  strong  a  temptation  to  the  orator, 
I  am  amazed  by  their  didactic  character  and  by  the 
sobriety  of  their  manner.  Are  these  really  the  speeches 
of  an  agitator  or  of  a  professor  of  politics?  It  seems 
incredible  that  such  disquisitions,  with  their  apparatus 
of  statistics  and  details  and  searching  analysis,  were 
addressed,  not  to  an  assembly  of  professed  politicians, 


Bright's  Oratory.  225 

but  to  immense  audiences  almost  entirely  composed  of 
men  who  were  not  even  voters."  It  suited  the  exigences 
of  controversy  to  represent  Bright  as  inflammatory,  pas- 
sionate, a  sower  of  disaffection.  But  let  his  speeches 
be  compared  with  the  incoherent  diatribes  of  the  eloquent 
Chartists,  or  the  perverse  contentiousness  of  Cobbett, 
or  with  the  demagogic  eloquence  of  Ireland  or  America 
to-day.  We  are  dealing  now  with  the  manner  rather 
than  the  substance  of  his  harangues  to  the  masses — 
with  the  fashion  of  popular  exhortation  which  he  adopted 
and  established  as  an  example.  The  number  of  his 
countrymen  who  listened  to  him  in  the  course  of  his 
career  was  larger  probably  than  any  other  orator  could 
count.  What  did  they  learn?  They  heard  the  English 
language  used  with  all  the  lucidity  and  force  of  Cobbett, 
but  also  with  a  graciousness  and  dignity  that  cannot 
have  failed  of  a  refining  influence  on  the  minds  of  unlet- 
tered men.  They  heard  a  man  who  in  every  word  he 
uttered  showed  that  he  treated  politics  as  a  subject 
worthy  of  the  fullest  tension  of  his  intellectual  powers. 
They  heard  appeals  to  morality  in  which  the  most  sen- 
sitive ear  could  not  detect  a  suspicion  of  hypocrisy. 
They  were  moved  to  laughter;  but  by  jests  that  diff"ered 
as  widely  as  possible  from  the  buffoonery  of  the  smoking- 
carriage  or  the  commercial- room.  Their  indignation 
was  aroused,  but  not  their  envy;  they  were  armed  with 
resolution,  not  stimulated  to  sedition.  They  learned 
self-respect,  earnestness,  loyalty,  patriotism. 

We  can  expect  no  unanimity  in  approval  of  the  sub- 
stance of  his  teaching.  He  attacked  institutions  that 
still  command  the  aff'ection  of  many  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  ;  he  tried  to  undermine  sentiments  that  still 
hold  their  place  in  the  prevalent  conception  of  patriotism. 
But  even  those  who  see  in  his  doctrine  the  exaltation  of 
the  narrowness  and  prejudice  of  a  commercial  middle- 
class,  will,  if  they  turn  from  the  substance  to  the  manner 

(M433)  P 


226  John  Bright. 

of  his  speeches,  agree  that  it  is  by  such  oratory  as  this 
that  the  victorious  populace  can  best  be  educated  to  the 
duties  of  citizenship. 


Chapter  X. 
Characteristics. 

Bright  was  a  man  of  middle  height  and  stoutly  built. 
In  his  youth  he  was  lean  and  spare,  but  his  fig^ure  soon 
thickened  to  the  comfortable  proportions  that  suggest  a 
prosperous  and  not  too  active  life.  A  head  and  face  of 
the  leonine  cast,  mild  blue  eyes,  clear-cut  and  handsome 
features,  the  forehead  both  broad  and  high,  the  mouth 
large  and  firm,  an  abundance  of  white  hair  and  a  fringe 
of  white  whisker,  the  lip  and  chin  shaven,  an  expression 
indicating  firmness,  digfnity,  benevolence,  and  a  thought- 
ful habit  of  mind,  but  giving*  little  promise  of  eagerness 
and  vivacity — such  was  the  outward  aspect  of  the  man 
who  for  so  many  years  stood  first  in  the  affections  of 
English  democrats. 

He  was  entirely  devoted  to  politics,  and  published  his 
opinions  on  any  other  subject  only  under  some  sort  of 
compulsion,  with  diffidence  and  embarrassment,  and  for 
the  most  part  ineffectively.  His  mind  was  eupeptic, 
contented,  conservative;  even  in  politics  he  was  not 
gfreedy  of  novelty;  and  in  the  mental  disquietude  that  in 
other  domains  of  intellectual  activity  calls  itself  modern 
thought,  or  claims  to  represent  this  or  that  phase  of  the 
Revolution,  he  remained,  so  far  as  any  public  utterance 
reveals  his  state  of  m^ind,  happily  uninterested.  It  is 
not  very  often  that  we  can  collect  any  opinion  outside 
politics  and  political  ethics  from  his  speeches.  An  ex- 
ception may  be  cited  for  the  sake  of  supplying  a  neces- 
sary note  to  one  of  his  best-known  speeches.     In  1854, 


Characteristics.  227 

accusingjministers  of  neg-lect  of  their  duties,  he  remarked 
that  Palmerston  had  "undertaken  a  labour  left  unaccom- 
plished by  Voltaire,  and  when  he  addressed  the  Hamp- 
shire peasantry,  had  in  one  short  sentence  overturned 
the  New  Testament  and  destroyed  the  foundation  of  the 
Christian  religion ".  What  Palmerston  had  said  was 
something-  to  the  effect  that  children  are  born  good,  and 
become  bad  only  by  bad  training.  This  amiable  doc- 
trine— which  is  to  be  found  in  Diderot  if  not  in  Voltaire, 
and  may  therefore  claim  the  dignity  of  an  idea  of 
the  Revolution — would,  if  announced  to-day,  encounter 
severer  criticism  from  the  scientific  than  from  the  theo- 
logical side. 

Few  men  from  an  obscure  origin  can  ever  have  at- 
tained so  great  an  eminence  of  fame  with  so  small  an 
expenditure  of  industry.  From  the  time  when  he  ac- 
cepted Cobden's  invitation  until  the  Corn  Law  was 
repealed,  he  did  not  spare  himself.  The  record  of  his 
League  speeches  implies  a  large  amount  of  labour.  It 
must,  however,  be  remembered  that  the  admirable  or- 
ganization of  the  League  employed  a  vast  number  of 
zealous  volunteers,  who  worked  together  under  an 
excellent  system  of  division  of  labour.  One  set  of  men 
took  charge  of  the  finances;  another  worked  at  the 
production  of  handbills  and  pamphlets  for  popular  dis- 
tribution; another  arranged  statistics,  and  collected  facts 
and  illustrations  for  the  use  of  the  speakers  and  lecturers. 
Bright  and  the  others  to  whom  the  propagation  of  the 
faith  on  the  platform  was  allotted,  were  supplied  with 
matter  for  their  speeches  from  Newall's  Buildings,  and 
were  in  the  position  of  advocates  speaking  from  a  well- 
prepared  brief. 

At  more  than  one  crisis  in  his  later  life  the  old  activity 
was  resumed  for  a  time.  But  the  indications  are  too 
numerous  and  too  precise  to  be  misread,  that  he  was, 
not  morally,  but  physically  and  constitutionally,  disposed 


228  John  Bright. 

to  indolence,  and  was  only  saved  by  a  dominant  sense 
of  duty  from  living-  an  idle  life.  Hard  mental  labour 
was  actually  perilous  to  him;  in  both  his  long-  illnesses 
it  was  necessary  to  protect  him  with  the  utmost  care 
from  any  mental  exertion.  Except  when  roused  to 
energ-y  by  some  crisis,  he  accepted  invitations  to  speak 
with  reluctance;  and  it  is  apparent  that  he  was  an  ex- 
ception to  the  rule  that  a  man  finds  enjoyment  in  doing- 
what  he  can  do  extremely  well.  If  the  whole  of  the 
work  he  got  throug-h  during  the  forty-six  years  of  his 
parliamentary  life  be  summed  up,  it  does  not  amount  to 
much  more  than  the  average  of  unofficial  members ;  and 
he  was  exempted  from  the  petits  soins  which  most  con- 
stituencies exact  from  their  representatives.  Many  men 
have  given  as  much  time  to  public  work  who  have  also 
satisfied  the  claims  of  an  arduous  occupation. 

Like  most  men  of  this  habit  of  life  he  was  fond  of 
miscellaneous  reading.  His  services  to  the  League  were 
recognized  by  a  handsome  present  of  books;  and  he 
gradually  accumulated  a  large  library.  He  had  acquired 
in  youth  a  great  love  for  English  poetry.  He  was  once, 
when  passing  an  idle  afternoon  in  a  drawing-room,  asked 
by  the  ladies  to  read  to  them  the  last  new  volume  of 
poems.  The  book  did  not  please  him.  He  laid  it  down, 
and  repeated  by  heart  with  spirit  and  enjoyment  a  sur- 
prisingly large  quantity  of  Byron.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  his  love  of  Byron  is  evidence  of  early  independence, 
for  it  is  improbable  that  in  the  early  years  of  the  century 
such  a  taste  should  have  been  encouraged  by  Quaker 
parents.  Milton  he  read  constantly;  he  preferred  Para- 
dise Regained,  and  made  a  point  of  reading  it  once  a 
year.  Notwithstanding  these  laudable  tastes  and  his 
genuine  love  of  books,  his  faculty  of  literary  criticism 
was  not  highly  developed.  It  was  matter  of  surprise 
that  an  orator  whose  own  productions  were  marked  by 
so  fine  a  sense  of  language  that  they  seem  secure  of  an 


Characteristics.  229 

honourable  place  in  the  history  of  English  prose,  should 
have  given  such  recommendations  of  books  as  seemed 
to  show  that  he  was  scarcely  sensible  of  the  difference 
between  good  writing  and  bad.  It  must,  however,  be 
recorded  to  his  credit,  that  he  was  one  of  the  first  Eng- 
lishmen to  recognize  the  merits  of  the  incomparable 
Biglow  Papers.  While  the  reading  of  books  was  a 
favourite  recreation,  he  always  regarded  the  newspapers 
of  the  day  as  having  the  first  claim  on  his  time.  Con- 
temporary politics  were,  in  fact,  the  one  subject  of  which 
he  made  a  serious  study ;  and  with  all  his  reading  his 
mental  equipment  remained  inferior  to  that  of  most 
Englishmen  who  have  been  eminent  in  politics.  After 
reading,  his  favourite  recreation  indoors  was  billiards. 

He  had  a  taste  for  travel,  and  saw  a  good  deal  of 
Europe  and  something  of  the  East.  He  declined  invita- 
tions to  visit  the  United  States,  pleading  that  he  was 
a  bad  sailor.  If  there  was  any  admixture  of  generous 
illusion  in  his  estimate  of  the  American  polity,  he  did 
not  incur  the  risk  of  losing  it  by  personal  observation. 

He  loved  the  fresh  air  and  wild  open  scenery,  and 
had  a  keen  relish  for  the  diversion  of  salmon-fishing, 
especially  in  Scotch  waters.  When  reproached  with  the 
cruelty  of  his  favourite  amusement,  he  would  answer 
the  objector  according  to  his  folly.  Fox-hunting,  he 
remarked,  might  be  called  cruel,  because  you  routed 
out  the  fox  and  hunted  him  willy-nilly;  but  the  salmon- 
fisher  merely  laid  his  fly  before  the  fish,  who  had  always 
the  option  of  not  taking  it.  His  attachment  to  Llan- 
dudno was  well  known,  and  helped  to  make  the  fortune 
of  the  place;  it  was  associated  with  the  memory  of  a 
little  boy  who  died  there,  and  whose  grave  in  the  little 
churchyard  on  the  cliff  he  visited  annually. 

But  his  chief  happiness,  as  befitted  a  man  who  stands 
as  the  representative  of  the  best  type  of  the  English 
middle-class,  was  found  in  family  affection.      He  had  a 


230  John  Bright. 

larg-e  family  of  sons  and  daughters,  and,  except  for  the 
early  bereavement  that  condemned  him  to  a  six  years' 
widowhood,^  his  domestic  life  was  fortunate.  One  of 
his  boldest  appeals  to  pathetic  sentiment  illustrates  this 
side  of  his  character.  During-  the  American  war  the 
feeling  in  favour  of  the  South  was  so  strong  that  Roe- 
buck ventured  to  move  the  House  in  favour  of  the 
recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  There  were 
Englishmen  to  whom  the  Southern  cotton-planters  ap- 
peared to  represent  the  virtues  of  a  landed  aristocracy 
and  the  loyalists  the  abominations  of  commerce;  to  them 
the  South  was  the  home  of  gentlemen  and  chivalry,  the 
North  of  bagmen  and  vulgarity.  Bright  resisted  Roe- 
buck's astonishing  proposal,  and  treated  his  palliation 
of  negro  slavery  with  fierce  indignation.  **  I  want  to 
know  whether  you  feel  as  I  feel  upon  this  question. 
When  I  can  get  down  to  my  home  from  this  House,  I 
find  half  a  dozen  little  children  playing  upon  my  hearth. 
How  many  members  are  there  who  can  say  with  me 
that  the  most  innocent,  the  most  pure,  the  most  holy 
joy  which  in  their  past  years  they  have  felt,  or  in  their 
future  years  they  have  hoped  for,  has  arisen  from  con- 
tact and  association  with  our  little  children !  If  that  be 
so,  if,  when  the  hand  of  death  takes  one  of  these  flowers 
from  our  dwelling,  our  heart  is  overwhelmed  with  sor- 
row, and  our  household  is  covered  with  gloom,  what 
would  it  be  if  our  children  were  brought  up  to  this 
infernal  system — a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them 
every  year  brought  into  the  world  in  the  slave  states, 
among  these  '  gentlemen',  among  this  *  chivalry',  among 
these  men  that  we  can  make  our  friends!" 

Although  he  was  probably  never  so  happy  as  in  the 
seclusion  of  his  own  circle  in  the  pleasant  home  that  he 
had  built  for  himself  at  Rochdale,  he  was  not  disinclined 

^In  1847  he  married  Margaret  Elizabeth  Leatham,  the  daughter  of  a 
Wakefield  banker.     She  died  in  1878. 


Characteristics.  231 

to  society.  Those  who  met  him  on  social  occasions  are 
agreed  in  their  testimony  to  the  singular  charm  of  his 
conversation.  It  had  many  of  the  fine  qualities  of  his 
eloquence,  and  impressed  those  who  heard  it  with  the 
same  sense  that  they  were  listening  to  a  man  of  remark- 
able mental  endowments.  The  "  undercurrent  of  religi- 
ous emotion  "  could  be  discerned  in  his  talk  as  well  as 
in  his  speeches.  **  In  his  graver  conversation",  remarks 
one  who  often  heard  him  talk,  "he  always  spoke  as  if 
living  continually  in  the  presence  of  the  Deity."  But 
he  was  well  disposed  also  for  conversation  of  the  lighter 
sort.  He  abounded  in  entertaining  reminiscences  of  the 
shrewd  homely  wit  of  Lancashire  characters.  He  was 
an  admirable  narrator  of  humorous  stories.  His  son, 
who  succeeded  him  in  the  representation  of  Central 
Birmingham,  once  incurred  the  reprobation  of  Mr.  Peck- 
sniff and  Mr.  Podsnap  by  repeating  in  public  a  story 
incautiously  selected  from  his  father's  table-talk. 

He  accepted  as  though  expecting  it  the  deference 
that  was  commonly  paid  to  him  in  any  large  company. 
Though  habitually  courteous,  he  was  not  effusive  or 
disposed  to  indiscriminate  affability.  But  he  readily 
recognized  the  claim  of  other  members  of  the  Society 
of  Friends  to  treat  him  with  the  brotherly  familiarity 
encouraged  by  the  customs  of  the  society. 

He  asserted  his  opinions  in  private  conversation  in  the 
same  decisive  and  uncompromising  manner  that  char- 
acterized his  public  utterances.  This  assertiveness, 
whether  on  the  platform  or  at  the  table,  implied  self- 
confidence  but  not  self-conceit.  He  was  by  no  means 
intolerant  of  contradiction.  When  he  first  visited  Bir- 
mingham in  1858  some  of  the  younger  Liberals  of  the 
town  met  him  at  dinner.  The  question  of  Gibraltar 
turned  up  in  conversation,  and  Bright  expressed  with 
his  usual  emphasis  his  opinion  that  Gibraltar  ought  to 
be  restored  to  Spain.     The  young  men,  thoug^h  listening' 


232  John  Bright. 

to  Brig-ht  with  becoming-  reverence,  had  courag-e  enough 
to  controvert  this  opinion.  So  far  from  taking  offence, 
Bright  afterwards  told  his  host  that  he  was  much  pleased 
by  what  he  had  heard.  He  had  not  expected,  he  said, 
to  find  men  of  such  intellig-ence  in  Birmingham.  The 
experience  of  the  Leag^ue  had  led  him  to  rank  his  new 
constituency  much  lower  than  Manchester  in  the  scale 
of  political  intelligence  and  energy.  Manchester  seems 
always  to  have  occupied  the  first  place  in  his  affection. 
His  Birmingham  constituents  observed  that  to  the  last 
he  always  spoke  of  ''your  city  ",  never  of  *'  our  city  ". 

His  habitual  use  of  terms  of  moral  censure  in  speaking 
of  differences  of  policy  or  opinion  laid  him  open  to  the 
charge  of  deficient  charity.  But  the  hardest  things  he 
said  about  his  opponents  will  be  found,  if  fairly  ex- 
amined, to  be  entirely  free  from  the  element  of  personal 
rancour.  His  conversation  showed  no  want  of  reason- 
able allowance  in  his  judgments  of  men.  The  respect 
with  which  he  and  Disraeli,  both  hard  hitters,  and 
differing  so  widely,  treated  one  another,  in  spite  of  a 
few  passages  of  hostility,  often  excited  remark.  It  has 
been  suggested  that  they  were  drawn  together  by  their 
common  antipathy  to  Palmerston.  Lord  George  Ben- 
tinck's  remark  that  "if  Bright  had  not  been  a  Quaker  he 
would  have  been  a  prize-fighter  "  has  often  been  quoted. 
A  jest  that  had  so  much  vogue  cannot  have  been  point- 
less. Yet  it  need  not  be  supposed  that  Bright's  invective 
seemed  improperly  severe  to  a  generation  that  had  seen 
Disraeli  make  himself  at  last  acceptable  by  his  famous 
assaults  upon  Peel.  The  point  was  that  some  people's 
sense  of  humour  was  touched  by  the  incongruity  of 
Bright's  vigour  with  the  current  conception  of  Quakerly 
meekness.  He  neither  cherished  personal  animosity, 
nor  excited  it  except  in  minds  of  the  smaller  sort. 

Bright  was  a  moderate  smoker,  and  is  said  to  have 
been  fastidious  in  his  choice  of  cigars,  exhibiting  em- 


Characteristics.  233 

barrassment  when  any  man  of  whose  good  taste  he 
was  not  assured  proffered  a  cig-ar-case.  He  practised 
teetotalism  habitually,  though  not  rigidly.  It  was  his 
custom  when  proposing  a  toast  at  a  public  dinner  to 
announce  his  own  intention  of  drinking  it  in  water.  In 
early  life  he  was  active  in  the  Temperance  movement; 
but  he  ceased  to  attend  Temperance  meetings  because 
he  could  not  tolerate  the  uncharitable  language  which  at 
that  time,  as  he  tells  us,  the  orators  of  the  Temperance 
cause  permitted  themselves  to  use.  He  did  not  support 
the  attempts  at  legislation  made  by  the  friends  of  Tem- 
perance, except  that  he  was  willing  to  empower  localities 
that  desired  it  to  close  public-houses  on  Sunday.  In 
1864  he  spoke  against  the  measure  that  was  then  called 
the  Permissive  Bill,  and  that  has  since  reappeared  under 
other  insincere  names;  and  he  never  receded  from  the 
opinion  that  he  expressed  in  that  debate.  He  was 
always  suspicious  of  legislative  interference  with  free- 
dom of  action ;  and  he  took  many  opportunities  of 
reiterating  his  view  that  ''Parliament  was  not  justified 
in  inflicting  unnecessary  difficulties  and  unnecessary 
irritations  upon  the  trade  of  the  licensed  victualler". 
He  looked  to  education  rather  than  legislation  for  the 
remedy  of  intemperance;  this,  he  used  to  say,  must  be 
the  sheet-anchor  of  the  reformer. 

He  had,  however,  a  modest  proposal  of  licensing 
reform  of  his  own.  He  suggested  that  a  clause  of  the 
Municipal  Corporations  Bill  of  1835  should  be  revived. 
By  this  clause,  which  passed  the  Commons  but  was 
taken  out  by  the  Lords,  the  power  of  licensing  was  to  be 
transferred  from  the  magistrates  to  the  Council  in  every 
municipal  borough.  If  the  experiment  proved  success- 
ful, a  similar  reform  might  be  devised  for  rural  districts. 
The  Councils  were  to  be  forbidden  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  houses,  except  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of 
population.     They  were  to  be  empowered  to  reduce  the 


234  John  Bright. 

number  of  licensed  houses  by  not  more  than  one-half. 
The  taxes  paid  on  licensed  property  were  to  be  trans- 
ferred from  the  Treasury  to  the  corporations,  who  were 
to  have  the  power  of  levying*  further  taxes  on  such  pro- 
perty in  consideration  of  the  monopoly.  Out  of  this  fund 
compensation  was  to  be  paid  to  dislicensed  publicans. 
The  essence  of  his  counsel  on  this  difficult  question  was 
g-iven  in  these  words:  **The  temperance  opinion  in  this 
country,  if  you  can  combine,  is  very  powerful.  But  it 
is  only  powerful,  and  will  only  be  successful,  when 
brought  to  bear  in  favour  of  practicable  and  moderate 
measures."     This  was  said  in  1883. 

It  remains  to  estimate  the  historical  and  permanent 
importance  of  Bright's  work.  Speaking-  to  his  con- 
stituents in  October,  1873,  Bright  said:  **The  history 
of  the  last  forty  years  of  this  country,  judged  fairly, 
— I  speak  of  its  legislation, — is  mainly  a  history  of  the 
conquests  of  freedom.  It  will  be  a  g-rand  volume  that 
tells  the  story;  and  your  name  and  mine,  if  I  mistake 
not,  will  be  found  in  some  of  its  pages."  No  one  will 
be  disposed  to  disallow  so  modest  a  claim  as  this. 

There  are  seven  leading  political  ideas  of  which  Bright 
was  a  conspicuous  advocate,  and  with  which  he  at- 
tempted, with  more  or  less  success,  to  indoctrinate  the 
British  electorate.  These  were :  Free  Trade,  Free  Land, 
Democracy,  Religious  Equality,  Retrenchment,  Peace 
or  non-interference  abroad,  Laisser-faire  or  non-inter- 
ference at  home. 

After  the  account  that  has  already  been  given  of 
Bright's  opinions  and  purposes,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
attempt  any  further  definition  of  these  terms.  Of  these 
principles  four  made  enormous  advancement  in  popular 
favour  and  in  their  influence  on  actual  legislation  during 
his  lifetime.  No  other  politician  ever  had  the  satisfac- 
tion, in  respect  of  so  many  subjects  of  deliberation,  of 
seeing"  a  small  minority  under  his  guidance  grow  into  a 


Characteristics.  235 

majority  of  the  popular  House.  There  is  hardly  a  single 
prominent  publicist  of  his  time  who  did  not  at  some  time 
come  to  give  his  support  to  a  measure  which  he  had 
formerly  opposed  and  which  Bright  had  consistently 
supported.  So  striking  a  record  can  scarcely  fail  to 
attract  the  attention  of  any  careful  historian  of  our  era. 
The  question  remains,  how  far  we  are  to  attribute  this 
good  fortune  to  Bright's  faculty  for  guiding  public 
opinion,  and  how  far  to  his  sagacity  in  forecasting  its 
direction;  and  in  what  proportion  the  credit  is  to  be 
distributed  between  Bright,  his  coadjutors,  and  the  im- 
personal forces  of  political  development. 

Bright's  share  in  the  victory  of  Free  Trade  seems 
more  likely  to  be  over-estimated  than  unduly  disparaged. 
The  public  memory  naturally  retains  four  eminent  names 
— Cobden  and  Bright,  the  agitators;  Villiers,  the  par- 
liamentary leader;  and  Peel,  the  man  who  actually 
repealed  the  law  at  the  cost  of  political  martyrdom, — 
whilst  the  pioneers  of  the  movement,  and  the  army  of 
essayists,  pamphleteers,  and  organizers,  are  forgotten. 
Work  which,  like  Bright's,  was  performed  in  the  open 
and  in  the  midst  of  applause,  is  secure  of  recognition. 
The  practical  triumph  of  the  Free-traders  was  the  con- 
version of  Peel ;  and  it  seems  improbable,  if  we  consider 
how  much  less  effect  popular  oratory  and  popular  re- 
sponse were  likely  to  have  upon  the  mind  of  a  statesman 
then  than  now,  that  Bright's  share  in  this  feat  was 
considerable.  Bright  outlived  Cobden  by  many  years, 
and  he  displayed  vastly  greater  aptitude  for  politics  in 
general  than  others  of  his  companions ;  we  may  mislead 
ourselves  if  we  judge  the  Bright  of  1845  by  the  Bright 
of  1854  or  1865.  The  French  critic  whose  admirable 
essay  on  Bright  has  already  been  quoted,  remarks: 
"  For  a  long  time  he  was  regarded  as  one  who  merely 
followed  the  inspiration  of  Cobden.  He  did  not  allow 
his  self-esteem  to  take  offence   at  this.     Rejoicing  to 


236  John  Bright. 

fig"ht  side  by  side  with  such  a  man,  he  did  not  dream  of 
claiming'  originaHty  for  his  ideas,  or  of  making  any 
display  of  independence.  So  long  as  Cobden  lived  John 
Bright  was  content,  in  spite  of  the  indubitable  superiority 
of  his  talents,  to  take  the  second  place  among  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Manchester  School."  These  remarks 
do  no  more  than  justice  to  the  absence  of  jealousy  be- 
tween the  Dioscuri  of  Free  Trade;  but  they  do  much 
less  than  justice  to  the  commanding  ability  of  Cobden. 
If  we  look  at  Free  Trade  only,  Cobden's  name  deserves 
to  be  mentioned,  as  Peel  mentioned  it,  alone. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  sub- 
sequent history  compels  us  to  form  a  higher  estimate 
than  seemed  necessary  fifty  years  ago  of  the  power  of 
the  men  who  carried  the  policy  of  Free  Trade  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  If  it  is  fair  to  urge  the  failure  of 
Free-trade  principles  to  win  acceptance  in  America  and 
the  Colonies  as  a  reason  for  disparaging  the  confidence 
with  which  Bright  and  Cobden  asserted  their  doctrine, 
it  is  fair  also  to  use  it  as  a  measure  of  the  resisting 
forces  over  which  they  won  their  famous  victory.  The 
modesty  that  ascribed  their  success  to  the  inherent 
strength  of  the  cause  rather  than  to  the  prowess  of  its 
champions,  must  yield  to  the  consideration  that  the  cause 
has  elsewhere  been  a  losing  cause.  It  is  now  apparent 
that  this  success  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  its 
kind  in  all  history;  and  even  though  we  assign  to  Bright 
only  a  secondary  share  of  the  credit  of  the  achievement, 
the  honour  to  be  distributed  is  large  enough  to  bear  sub- 
division. 

Bright's  devotion  to  the  principles  of  the  Free  Churches,  v 
which  was  not  less  ardent  than  his  faith  in  Free  Trade, 
was  rewarded  by  the  abolition  of  church-rates,  the  ad- 
mission of  Jews  to  Parliament,  the  removal  of  religious 
tests  in  the  Universities,  in  part  by  Mr.  Gladstone  and 
completely  by  Lord  Salisbury's  Commission,  and  by  the 


Characteristics.  237 

passing  of  the  Burials  Bill.  The  disestablishment  of  the 
Irish  Church  ought  perhaps  not  to  be  counted  among 
the  triumphs  of  the  principle  of  Religious  Equality. 

In  appraising  Bright's  contribution  to  the  work  of 
winning  for  Dissenters  equality  of  treatment  by  the 
State,  we  ought  to  count,  not  only  the  persuasive  value 
of  his  speeches  in  themselves,  but  also  the  fact  that  he 
was  the  first  son  of  the  free  churches  who  attained  a 
high  position  in  political  life.  He  was  the  first  Protes- 
tant Nonconformist  since  the  Restoration  to  become  a 
minister  of  the  Crown.  He  was,  indeed,  the  first,  since 
Defoe  and  Penn,  to  attain  eminence  of  any  sort  likely  to 
command  the  respect  of  politicians.  The  Dissenters 
had  long  been  the  humble  followers  of  the  Liberal  party. 
They  had  been  content  to  accept  the  patronage  of  such 
men  as  Fox  and  the  Russells.  The  condescension  of 
one  of  the  great  parties  was  hardly  less  contemptuous 
than  the  enmity  of  the  other.  They  had  been  neither 
loved  by  the  Whigs  nor  feared  by  the  Tories.  This 
contempt,  the  unfortunate  eff'ects  of  which  are  not  yet 
exhausted,  was  due  chiefly,  no  doubt,  to  the  narrowness 
of  the  aristocratic  regime,  but  partly  also  to  the  failure 
of  the  free  churches  to  produce  men  of  commanding 
ability.  In  Bright  for  the  first  time  they  found  a  cham- 
pion of  their  own  whose  advocacy  was  made  eff"ective 
not  only  by  the  inherent  force  of  his  case,  but  by  the 
authority  of  his  acknowledged  position  in  the  first  rank 
of  orators  and  politicians. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  ask  assent  to  any  estimate  of 
Bright's  success  in  winning  approval  for  a  peaceful  or 
*' un-English"  course  of  foreign  policy.  It  is  indisput- 
able that  his  opinion  that  the  war  with  Russia  was  on 
the  further  side  of  the  lines  that  limit  political  prudence 
and  political  morality,  gained  ground  immensely  after 
the  event.  That  may  have  been  so  in  part  because, 
when  the  fever  had  subsided,  when  the  war  was  ended 


238  John  Bright. 

and  the  remnant  of  the  ill-used  soldiery  were  home  agfain, 
and  when,  in  Bright's  phrase,  "all  was  over  except  the 
tax-gatherer  and  the  sorrows  of  those  who  had  lost 
their  friends  in  the  war",  it  was  scarcely  possible  to 
deny  that  the  results  of  the  war  were  not  commensurate 
with  the  sacrifices  it  had  cost.  It  is  conceivable  that  if 
the  issue  had  been  more  flattering-  to  national  pride,  if 
another  Trafalgar  had  been  fought  in  the  Baltic,  and  if 
Sevastopol  had  become  a  name  of  pride  like  Blenheim  or 
Waterloo,  those  who  condemned  Bright  at  first  would 
have  condemned  him  still.  The  fact  remains  that  there 
has  been  a  strong  current  of  opinion  in  Bright's  direc- 
tion, and  that,  if  he  was  not  the  author  of  the  change, 
there  is  no  other  man  to  dispute  the  credit  with  him. 
Tennyson,  whose  satire  generally  missed  fire,  had  put  at 
this  time  into  the  mouth  of  the  cross-grained  hero  of 
Maud  the  well-known  description  of  Bright  as 

"  The  broad-brimmed  hawker  of  holy  things. 
Whose  ear  is  stuffed  with  his  cotton,  and  rings 
Even  in  dreams  to  the  chink  of  his  pence". 

It  would  be  fair  to  retort  that  Bright  took  less  trouble 
about  the  profits  of  his  cotton-spinning  than  his  assailant 
is  credited  with  taking  to  get  the  best  market  price  for 
his  verses.  But  this  gibe  really  represented  at  the  time 
the  average  estimate  of  educated  Englishmen ;  and  yet 
Bright,  without  any  apology,  and  whilst  reiterating  the 
despised  opinion  in  and  out  of  season,  lived  it  down 
very  completely. 

We  have  already  quoted  from  Mr.  Morley  instances, 
sufficiently  striking  when  every  allowance  has  been 
made,  of  foreign  crises  in  which  England  did  not  inter- 
fere, although  interference  was  prescribed  by  the  Pal- 
merstonian  tradition.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  to  be 
admitted  that  the  year  after  Mr.  Morley  published  this 
remark   Bright  was  driven   from  office  by  the  warlike 


Characteristics.  239 

behaviour  of  his  colleagfues ;  and  that  since  his  death  we 
have  seen  a  Liberal  Opposition  calUng'  for  interference, 
and  trying-  to  revive  the  conception,  condemned  by 
Bright,  of  Eng-land's  vocation  to  be  *'the  knight-errant 
of  the  human  race".  It  is  also  to  be  admitted  that  even 
now  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  any  party  would  invite 
a  statesman  holding"  the  fulness  of  Bright's  views  to 
become  Foreign  Secretary,  and  that  still  the  majority  of 
Englishmen  would  regard  such  an  appointment  as  an 
invitation  to  the  wolves.  But  all  this  is  no  more  than 
to  say  that  Bright  represented  an  extreme  of  opinion 
that  is  not,  or  that  is  not  yet,  accepted  as  practicable. 
It  remains  true  that  he  led,  at  first  almost  unaided,  a 
revolt  against  the  opposite  extreme;  and  that,  if  he  did 
not  carry  conviction  as  far  as  he  desired,  he  did  promote 
a  change  in  the  national  spirit  comparable  to  the  revolu- 
tion of  sentiment  by  which  it  is  recognized  that  a  man 
may  preserve  his  personal  honour  without  fighting  duels. 
It  may,  however,  be  anticipated  that  those  who  write 
the  history  of  the  reign  of  Victoria  with  knowledge  of 
the  fuller  and  remoter  issues  of  our  controversies  and 
our  legislation,  will  pay  attention  to  Bright's  career 
chiefly  as  the  leader  of  the  Reform  movement  of  the 
sixties.  It  is  true  that  the  results  of  the  Leap  in  the 
Dark  have  hitherto  been  much  less  momentous  than 
they  were  foreshadowed  to  be  by  the  hopes  and  fears  of 
the  crisis.  The  hero  of  Water  Babies,  on  arriving  after 
much  tribulation  at  the  Other  End  of  Nowhere,  ''found 
it  much  more  like  This  End  of  Somewhere  than  he  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  expecting  ".  This  is  a  true  parable 
of  political  as  of  other  enthusiasm.  Nevertheless,  those 
who  will  have  the  advantage  of  comparing  the  politics 
of  the  twentieth  and  the  eighteenth  centuries  may  find 
reason  to  treat  both  1832  and  1867  as  memorable  epochs. 
The  more  closely  the  history  of  the  period  is  studied,  the 
more  disposed  will  the  student  become  to  treat  as  impor- 


240  John  Bright. 

tant  the  propulsion  and  the  direction  that  Bright  g^ave 
to  democratic  opinion.  We  do  not  yet  know  whether 
the  Reform  of  1867  was  a  great  event;  but,  if  it  was  a 
great  event,  Bright  is  a  great  character  in  history.  It 
is  of  course  certain  that  the  wage-earners  would  have 
been  enfranchised  sooner  or  later  though  Bright  had 
died  with  Cobden,  or  though  he  had  spent  his  life  in  his 
cotton-mill  at  Rochdale,  mute  and  inglorious.  But  very 
few  names  would  be  left  in  our  histories  if  we  included 
only  persons  who  did  something  that  would  not  have 
been  done  without  them. 

Let  us  try  to  estimate  again  the  service  that  Bright 
rendered.  He  found  a  great  mass  of  discontent,  often 
inarticulate,  produced  in  part  by  the  necessary  inequali- 
ties of  a  civilized  community,  but  in  part  also  by  the 
artificial  privileges  against  which  he  waged  a  lifelong 
warfare,  by  unsympathetic  government,  and  by  the  dis- 
sociation of  what  he  called  the  governing  classes  from 
the  populace.  Since  the  collapse  of  the  Chartist  agita- 
tion— of  the  perils  of  which  Bright  was  fully  aware — 
the  aristocratic  Liberals  were  content  to  ignore  a  malady 
which  had  certainly  not  disappeared  because  one  par- 
ticular manifestation  of  it  had  failed  through  unwise 
guidance.  To  Carlyle  at  this  time  Bright  appeared 
one  of  the  foolishest  creatures  he  had  ever  heard  of — 
''clamouring  about  America  and  universal  suffrage,  as  if 
there  was  any  sensible  man  anywhere  in  the  world  who 
put  the  smallest  confidence  in  that  sort  of  thing  nowa- 
days!" Certainly  Bright's  performances  did  not  resemble 
those  of  Mirabeau,  Governor  Eyre,  and  the  rest  of  the 
heroes.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  doing  something  to 
prevent  one  of  those  crises  at  which  the  Carlylean  hero 
makes  his  distinguished  appearance — generally  too  late 
to  do  much  good  without  doing  also  a  great  deal  of 
harm.  Bright  did  not  create  this  discontent ;  he  guided 
it  towards  a  definite  purpose,  which  was  not  a  revolu- 


Characteristics.  241 

tionary  purpose.  He  dug"  a  channel  for  waters  that 
were  already  flowing,  and  that  might  have  become  a 
torrent.  He  exhibited  a  constitutional  remedy  for  com- 
plaints that  were  likely  to  tempt  the  sufferers  to  accept 
the  panaceas  of  empirics.  The  accession  of  Bright  to 
the  leadership  of  English  democracy  put  a  stop  to  a 
good  deal  of  crying  for  the  moon,  and  marked  the  end 
of  a  period  of  riots  and  rick-burnings,  of  Peterloo  mas- 
sacres and  indictments  for  sedition. 

He  was,  in  short,  the  chief  educator  of  the  wage-earn- 
ing" classes  at  a  time  when  they  were  acquiring,  and  when 
they  had  newly  acquired,  a  power  perilous  to  the  nation, 
if  it  should  be  used  without  sobriety.  They  have  turned 
to  other  masters,  and  have  already  unlearned  some  of 
the  lessons  that  he  tried  to  teach  them.  He  would  have 
regarded  their  aberrations  with  no  great  discomposure 
if  he  were  satisfied  that  they  had  not  lost  their  hold  of 
the  central  article  of  his  political  faith.  **  May  I  ask 
you",  he  said,  *'to  believe,  as  I  do  most  devoutly 
believe,  that  the  moral  law  was  not  written  for  men 
alone  in  their  individual  character,  but  that  it  was  written 
as  well  for  nations,  and  for  nations  great  as  this  of  which 
we  are  citizens.  If  we  reject  and  deride  that  moral  law, 
there  is  a  penalty  which  will  inevitably  follow."  This 
sentiment  has  been  the  commonplace  of  innumerable 
orators;  to  Bright  it  was  a  real  inspiration. 


(M4S8)  Q 


Index. 


Aberdeen,  Lord,  49,  56,  CiT. 
AduUam,  Cave  of,  114. 
America,  96,  105-108,  156,  222,  230. 
Arabi,  180. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  150. 
Ashley,  Lord  (Earl  of  Shaftesbury), 
23,  32,  36. 

Baines,  Edward,  109. 

Balance  of  Power,  62,  64. 

Ballot,  41,  90-1,  161. 

Barron,  Sir  H.  W.,  136. 

Benthamites,  37. 

Bentinck,  Lord  G.,  82;  quoted,  232. 

Birmingham,  76-7,  95,  145-6,  156, 

183,  197,  199,  232. 
Bouverie,  E.  P.,  143. 
Bradlaugh,  C,  177. 
Bright  Clauses,  153. 
Brougham,  Lord,  32. 
Burials  Bill,  179. 
Burke,  207-8,  212. 
Butcher,  S.  H.,  quoted,  207. 

Canning,  Lord,  86-7. 

Capital  punishment,  46. 

Carlyle,  quoted,  21,  119,  125,  240. 

Challemel-Lacour,  P.,  quoted,   12, 

224,  235. 
Chamberlain,  J.,  203;  quoted,  134. 
Chartists,  Chartism,  19,  26,  29,  41, 

42,  52,  90,  100. 
Church  of  England,    11,  38-9,  47, 

179,  182-3. 
Church  Rates,  9,  11,  51,  162. 
Churchill,  Lord  R.,  196,  197. 


Clarendon,  Lord,  56,  113. 

Closure  of  Debates,  189,  193-4. 

Clough,  A.  H.,  quoted,  95. 

Cobbett,  J.  M.,  36. 

Cobden,  Richard,  14-15,  18,  19,  20, 
25,  29,  36,  42,  59,  73-5,  98,  102, 
105,  no,  235-6. 

Coercion  in  Ireland,  135,  193. 

Compound  householder,  123-4. 

Concert,  European,  56,  59,  171,  173. 

Cooper,  C.  A.,  quoted,  120. 

Corn  Law,  15;  Peel's,  19;  repeal  of, 
24. 

Cotton  Famine,  81,  108. 

Cranborne,  Lord  (Marquis  of  Salis- 
bury), T2I,  125,  171-2;  quoted, 
204. 

Crawford,  W.  Sharman,  139. 

Demosthenes,  207,  224. 

Derby,  fourteenth  Earl  of,  48,  85, 
117. 

Derby,  fifteenth  Earl  of.  See  Stan- 
ley, 

Disaffection,  argument  from,  104, 
148-9. 

Disraeli,  B.  (Earl  of  Beaconsfield), 
22,  41,  48-9,  61,  85-7,  96-7,  lOI, 
112,  117,  119-125, 128,  143-4,  i6<^, 
171,  175,  206,  220,  232. 

Dixon,  George,  156,  160. 

Dublin,  117,  135. 

Durham,  20, 

Eastern  Question,  170-175. 
Education,  National,  38-9.  154-161. 


244 


John  Bright. 


Egyptian  Question,  176-7,  180-1. 
EUenborough,  Lord,  86. 

Factory  Acts,  29,  32-35. 
Factory  system,  28,  33. 
Fancy  Franchises,  97,  122. 
Federation,  Imperial,  168,  203. 
Ferrand,  W.  B.,  32. 
Fielden,  John,  32. 
Financial  Reform,  42,  99-100. 
Force  no  remedy,  135,  192. 
Foreign  policy,  53-72,  167,  173-5, 

176,  180,  237-9, 
Forster,  Sir  C. ,  35. 
Forster,  W.  E.,  95,  116,  158,  189. 
Fox,  W.  J.,  25. 

Free  Breakfast-table,  100,  162-3. 
Free  Land,  138,  163-4. 
Free  Trade,  14-28,  102,  169,  235-6. 
French  Treaty,  102. 
Friends,  Society  of,  11,  204,  231. 
Froude,  J.  A.,  quoted,  24. 

Game  Laws,  44-6,  162,  178 
Gibraltar,  231. 

Gibson,  T.  Milner,  40,  52,  85. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  17,  22,  49,  52,  67, 

74.  99.  107.  no,  113,  123,  130,  141, 

146,  164,  170,  171,  180,  188,  198, 

200,  209. 
Glasgow,  III,  i8i. 
Graham,  Sir  J.,  45,  60. 
Granville,  Earl,  150,  162;   quoted, 

147. 
Gray,  Dr. ,  letter  to,  133. 
Greville,  C,  quoted,  66,  67, 101, 113. 
Grote,  G.,  90. 

Harcourt,  Sir  W. ,  178. 

Hartington,  Lord  (Duke  of  Devon- 
shire), 98,  170,  196,  199. 

Hobhouse,  Sir  J.  C.  (Lord  Brough- 
ton),  82. 

Home  Rule,  187,  198-202. 

Horsman,  E.,  114. 

Hume,  Joseph,  16,  37,  41,  42,  43. 


Imperialism,  79,  167. 
India,  77-89. 

Ireland,  128-154,  187-202. 
Irish  Church,  131-4,  141,  147-152. 
Irish  Land,  134-141, 152-3,  188, 193. 
Irish  Members,  135-6,  189-191, 192, 
196. 

Jewish  Disabilities,  50. 
Jingo,  172. 

Kinglake,  quoted,  26. 
Kingsley,  quoted,  239. 
Knowledge,  Taxes  on,  51-3. 

Laisser-faire,  34,  38,  155. 
Land-owning  aristocracy,  28, 30,139. 
Liberal  Unionist  party,  198-9. 
Liberation  Society,  133,  181-3. 
Lords,  House  of,  24, 41, 150-2, 185-6. 
Lowe,      Robert     (Viscount      Sher- 
brooke),  109,  114-6,  124,  125,  146. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.  (Lord  Macaulay), 
12,  23,  33,  39,  83,  91,  104,  148, 
205;  quoted  26,  61,  83. 

Magee,  Archbishop,  200,  202. 

Malmesbury,  Lord,  quoted,  102. 

Manchester,  14,  40,  49,  73,  74-6, 
232. 

Manchester  School,  20,  32,  34,  37. 

Mangles,  R.  D.,  86. 

Manners,  Lord  J.  (Duke  of  Rutland), 
103,  185. 

Maynooth  Grant,  131-2. 

Melbourne,  Lord,  17. 

Menschikoff  Note,  55. 

Miall,  Edward,  37. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  38,  125. 

Ministry,  changes  of,  (1841)  17, 
(1846)  36,  (March,  1852)  48,  (Dec, 
1852)  49,  (1855)  67,  (1858)  85, 
(1859)  99,  (1866)  117.  (1868)  146, 
(1873)  161,  (1874)  164,  (1880)  177, 
(1885)  195,  (Jan.,  1886)  198,  (July, 
1886)  199. 


Index. 


245 


Minority  vote,  93,  loi,  126, 145, 186, 
Molesworth,  Sir  W, ,  37,  61. 
Morley,  John,  quoted,   21,  63,   81, 
106,  238. 

Napier,  Sir  C,  59-60. 
Napoleon  III.,  48,  54,  59,  85,  102. 
Nonconformists,      Nonconformity, 
II.  38,  50-1,  108,  132,  133,  149- 

150.  155-6,  179.  237- 
Non-intervention,    62-3,    103,    176, 

181,  237-9. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  194,  196. 

O'Connor,  Feargus,  19. 
Osborne,  Bernal,  109,  123. 

Palmerston,  Viscount,  20,  36,  48-9, 
50,  58,  60,  64,  65,  68,  71.  85,  91, 
99,  113.  127,  227. 

Papal  Aggression,  46-8. 

ParneU,  C.  S.,  188. 

Pathos,  213,  215. 

Payment  of  members,  90. 

Peace,  79,  181,  237-9. 

Peel,  Sir  R.,  17,  22,  24,  36,  132. 

Peel,  Sir  R.  (the  younger),  103. 

Pendulum,  the  political,  165-7. 

Perorations,  examples  of,  66,  68-70, 
95-6,  107,  154,  214-5. 

Protection,  27,  49,  197. 

Queen,  Her  Majesty  the,  118-9. 
Quintilian,  quoted,  215, 
Quotations,  222-3. 

Radicalism,  old  and  new,  167-8. 

Reform,  Parliamentary,  40-1,  89- 
128,  184-6,  239-40. 

Reform  Bills,  (1852)  92,  (1854)  93, 
(1859)  96-7,  (i860)  loi,  (1866) 
113-7,  (1867)  120-6,  (1868)  128, 
(1884)  184-6,  (1885)  186,  Bright's, 
96. 

Religious  Difficulty,  157,  159. 

Religious  Equality,  182-3,  236-7. 


Retrenchment,  42,  92,  in,  168. 

Rhythm  in  oratory,  211. 

Ricardo,  J.  L.,  37. 

Ripen,  Marquis  of,  89. 

Rochdale,  9,  183. 

Roebuck,  J.  A.,  6t,  95,  105,  230. 

Rogers,  Thorold,  quoted  and  cor- 
rected, 66,  160,  216. 

Russell,  Lord  John  (Earl  Russell), 
17-18,  20,  23-4,  30,  36,  38,  46-8, 
49,  61,  67,  71,  92-3,  98,  99,  lOI, 
104,   113,   138,    149;  quoted,   18, 

Si>  65. 
Rutland,  Duke  of.    See  Manners. 

Salisbury,  Marquis  of.    See  Cran- 

BORNE. 

Saturday  Review,  quoted,  'jS, 

Savoy,  annexation  of,  103. 

Scholefield,  W.,  105. 

School  Boards,  158,  161. 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of.  See  Ash- 
ley. 

Sherbrooke,  Viscount.     See  Lowe. 

Sliding-scale,  16,  17;  Peel's,  19,  27. 

Spencer,  Earl,  195-6. 

Spooner,  R.,  61. 

Stanley,  Lord  (Earl  of  Derby),  141, 

175- 

Stephen,  Leslie,  quoted,  78. 

Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  Lord,  54-5, 

57. 
Sugar  duties,  17. 

Tea-room  party,  123. 
Temperance,  233-4. 
Ten  Hours  Bill,  32. 
Tennyson,  quoted,  238. 
Theebaw,  176. 

Thomson,     Poulett    (Lord    Syden- 
ham), 16. 
Times,  quoted,  21,  23,  'jS. 
Trades-unions,  20,  169-170. 
Trevelyan,  Sir  G.  O.,  184,  195. 
Triennial  Parliaments,  90. 
Truck  Act,  35. 


246 


John  Bright. 


Ulster  Custom,  139,  152. 
Ulster  loyalists,  202. 
"Un-English",  epithet  applied  to 

Bright,  103,  106,  116. 
Utihtarians,  37. 

Vienna  Note,  57,  62,  65. 


Villiers,  C.  P.,  16. 

Watkin,  A.,  letter  to,  54,  67,  75. 
Wit  and  humour,  43-4,  50,  73,  114, 

141,  185,  200,  220-1. 
Woman  Suffrage,  125. 
Wood,  Sir  C,  83. 


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